In Love with a Criminal
by Mirasaurus
Summary: Three years after the events of the movie, Loki has been released from imprisonment and returned to Midgard to see the Avengers, seemingly with benign intentions. Has the God of Lies learned to tell the truth, or is he hatching a sinister plan? Frostiron Tony/Loki , background Clint/Natasha. Rated M for future chapters.
1. You Could Have Called

AN: I haven't written a fanfiction since I was 14, 4 years ago, way back when I was a massive Death Note fangirl. My my, how times have changed. Anyways, I hope you guys like my return to the trade. This first chapter is rather cracky, but this story is also going to contain ansty, fluffy, and most importantly smutty at one point or another. Frostiron with background Clint/Natasha. Enjoy!

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It had been 3 years since the Avengers had heard a peep out of Loki since when he tried to use the Chitauri to enslave Earth. For the first few months, the team had been scattered the farthest corners of the globe they could manage. However, since their disposal of the God of Mischief, a new villain had appeared seemingly out of nowhere, calling himself Doctor Doom. After his first couple of attacks on New York City had gone unchecked for hours until the rest of the team arrived. Now they'd learned their lesson – by command of Fury - and the whole team was currently living together in Stark Tower.

In that time, Thor's people had used the Tesseract to repair the Rainbow Bridge. Thor used it frequently to aid his friends in defending the city, or even to just check in on the Avengers and Jane. Lately, the God of Thunder had been spending even more time on Earth than usual. No one was complaining about the amiable god's presence, but it still made them wonder what could be keeping him from his home.

At the moment the team was in the rec-room Tony had setup, winding down from an exhausting day of fighting off the latest wave of Doombots. Steve and Thor were playing foosball against Bruce and Clint, Natasha was sitting on one of the large black leather couches with her guns laid out on the coffee table to be cleaned, and Stark was sitting across from her on the other couch with the left arm of his suit still on and the armoured plates removed, trying to repair some damage the circuitry had sustained during the fight. Every now and then Natasha would look up and the group huddled around the foosball table when their banter got particularly raucous and chuckled to herself, finding the sight of four large, muscular men huddled around a children's game hilarious. A particularly loud shout came from the four heroes, causing even Stark to look up from his work. Thor was standing there with one of the game's handles clutched in his massive grip, the other three laughing merrily at him.

"I am sorry, Tony. I seem to have gotten carried away with your little spinning man game…" Thor said, looking genuinely distraught.

"Don't worry about it, Point Break. I don't expect anything in this place to last very long with you, Cap, and Bruce around," Stark assured him.

"Sir, need I remind you of the… incident… you had in the lab last week?" JARVIS reminded him.

'_One day I'm gonna figure out what makes him so snappy,'_ Tony thought to himself. "Well, I guess I have done my fair share of breaking stuff, too," Tony laughed, pointing palm at the already broken foosball table and blasting it to pieces. "Oh look, I fixed it."

Natasha rolled her eyes at her team mates, trying to hide a smile. Even though the assassin had no desire to participate in it, she still found their antics very entertaining to watch.

"Sir, Director Fury on the line," JARVIS interrupted, "It sounds urgent."

"He does realize we just got back from a mission, right?"

"Yes I do. But nobody ever said that planet Earth's last line of defense wasn't gonna have to work a little overtime every now and then," Fury shouted at Stark over JARVIS's PA system.

"What's the situation, sir?" Natasha asked, opting to step in before it became a shouting match.

"We're not sure. All we know is someone's blowing up central park. Get your super asses down there _now_ and stop it!"

"Is it Doctor Doom again?"

"We haven't had any Doombots reported in the area, but that doesn't mean that he's just using something we've never seen before. Now get over there!" Fury hung up, and the Avengers sprang into action.

Natasha threw her disassembled guns back together in seconds and ran up to the roof where Tony had installed a landing pad for their hovering jet, with Clint, Bruce, and Steve on her heels. The rest of the mark IV suit that had saved him when Loki tossed him out a window 3 years ago flew onto Tony, almost running into Mjolnir as it flew to Thor's outstretched hand. The god of thunder waited while the suit assembled itself, and they launched out of the building together.

Since Bruce preferred not to go Hulk as much as he could, he had been taught how to pilot the jet. When Ironman and Thor arrived, he already had it circling over the park, trying to locate the source of the random explosions that were happening all over the park. Thor landed in the opened rear bay of the jet while Tony hovered just outside it.

"Call it, Cap," the metallic voice of the Ironman's external speakers droned.

"We need to locate who or whatever's doing this. Natsha, Clint, stay in the jet for now and circle, see if you can get a visual. Thor, you're with me on the ground. Tony, make sure there aren't any civilians left inside the park," Steve ordered.

Simply nodding their agreement, the team shot off to achieve their respective tasks. Thor grabbed Steve and swung his hammer, landing them in a clearly caused by one of the blasts as Tony shot off to fly low through the trees.

"Jarvis, do a scan for any people still in the area, as well as any mysterious energy signatures coming from within the park," Tony ordered his digital butler.

"Already done, sir. There's one directly east of our current location."

"Which one? A civilian or a threat?"

"Both, sir."

"Fantastic," Tony sighed as he swung in that direction.

What he found came as a surprise. There, sitting on a park bench facing a pond was Loki. In his left hand was a rope leading to a young girl he had tied up as a hostage, and in his right was a small ball of fiery green magic, which flashed brighter every time one of the explosions went off.

"Let her go, Reindeer Games," Tony warned, pointing his palms at the god's head.

Loki simply casually turned his head to look at the Avenger, a small though menacing grin crossing his face.

"What's the matter, man of iron? All I wanted was to get your attention. I've made sure the explosions didn't actually injure anyone. Pity."

"You know, you could have just called," Tony said. He was intrigued now, but he wasn't about to let his guard down just to satisfy his curiosity.

"Oh, where's the fun in that?"

"Let the girl go, stop blowing stuff up, and we can talk."

"Oh fine, if you insist," Loki said with a roll of his eyes. He waved his right hand and the green flame died, and he clicked his fingers and the ropes unraveled from around his hostage, who immediately ran off. "Now I would appreciate it if you didn't try to blow my head off with your little toy, since I've been ever so compliant."

Stark lowered his hands and opened up the suit's helmet, ignoring JARVIS's protests. However, before he could being to ask what the god of mischief wanted, Mjolnir came flying out of nowhere, hitting him directly in the chest. The force of the impact shattered the bench and set him flying, finally coming to rest several yards away, the hammer sitting on his chest.

"Good to see you too, _brother._" Loki wheezed, the last word coming out far more sarcastic than the rest.

"Why do you attack Midgard?" Thor bellowed as he and Steve came running up moments later.

"Straight to the point, I see. As I was telling your rather flashy friend, I merely wanted to get your attention. You've been avoiding me."

"Is that why you haven't been returning to Asgard?" Steve asked.

"Of course it is. He can't stand the sight of his _little brother_ after knowing what tortures he's allowed our _father_ to put me through. Again." Every word Loki spoke that involved any kind of family ties, he spat like the words were venom in his mouth.

After a moment's hesitation, Thor sighed and admitted that Loki spoke the truth, his head hung low in shame and his blond mane covering his face.

"That still does explain why you're here," Tony pointed out, standing over the god and laughing to himself as he struggled to remove the hammer from his chest, even though he knew it was impossible.

"In case it hasn't occurred to you, man of iron, I don't exactly get along with Asgardians. And as much as Thor's brutish stupidity grates on my nerves, his presence has a way of keeping them from making my life too miserable. A benefit that has been sorely lacked since I was released from my prison a few weeks ago."

"I am sorry, brother. Forgive me."

"What are you apologizing for? He's the won that kills a couple thousand people, filled my city with dead aliens, and tried to take over the planet. Not to mention kill you," Stark said, which earned him a glare that would have made anyone else want to curl up and hide from the god lying immobile on the ground. Tony merely stuck his tongue out at him, earning him a look of surprise and even slight confusion from Loki.

"What do you want to do with him, Thor?" Steve asked.

"I suppose it would be cruel to banish him back to Asgard. Despite his three years of imprisonment, there are still many there who want his head on a pike."

"Really? Gee I can't see why. He's such a nice guy," Tony mocked, angering Loki enough for him to hit in the chest with a blast of his green magic. Staggering slightly, Tony merely returned the favor with an energy blast from the palms of his suit. "A real gem."

"I suppose we'll have to lock him up somewhere until we figure out what to do with him," Steve sighed, looking pointedly at Tony.

"Aww, come on? You want him in my tower? The tower I just finished fixing after the last time he broke it?"

"We don't have anywhere else. I'm sure Thor doesn't want Fury getting ahold of him."

"Speaking of which, what are we going to tell him?" Tony asked.

"I suppose we could say it was just one more Doombot that we'd missed from earlier today, causing as much havoc as it could."

"Oh yea, like he'll believe that."

"Steve is right, Son of Howard. I will not allow Fury to experiment on my brother," Thor said, with enough conviction in his voice for the other two Avengers to know that the discussion was over.

"Fine. I'll radio Bruce to swing the jet around to pick us up," Tony sighed. "But if he breaks anything again, it's coming out of your check."

While the trio had been arguing around him, Loki and been attempting the feign looking as comfortable as he could with the hammer sitting on his chest, not even allowing him to move it enough to breathe. This was not how his plan had been intended to go, but he supposed being locked in Stark Tower would suffice for now. Suddenly the god's chain of thought was interrupted when the immense pressure was lifted off his chest and air rushed into his lungs. Then his brother grabbed him by the collar of his long, pretentious leather coat and launched them both into the air, landing in the awaiting hover-jet. Tony did the same to Steve, only a lot more gently. When he landed in the jet, he laughed at the fact that Thor had once again pinned his younger brother down with the hammer, having no other means of keeping him contained. This earned him another of Loki's very best menacing glares, to which Tony responded by simply blasting him in the chest again.

"Hey! What have we told you about no ray guns inside?" Clint barked from the cockpit.

"For the last time, it's not a ray gun, it's a-"

"I don't care what it is; I don't want it blowing holes in my plane! It's bad enough we've got _him _here, you really don't need to antagonize him." Tony wasn't sure if that last part was meant for him or Loki.

When the team arrived back at the Tower, Thor removed the hammer from Loki's chest once again and led him by the scruff of the neck, following Tony down to basement where all of the heavier duty rooms of Stark Tower were located. This required then walking through his lab, which caused Loki to slow his pace so he could get a better look at all the bizarre machinery crowding the place. Unlike Thor, Loki actually found Midgardian science to be of interest, even if it was nothing in comparison to his magic.

Finally, they arrived at a small but heavily fortified room at the far end of Tony's lab. It had extremely thick concrete walls with reinforcing bars made of the same alloy as Cap's shield, which Stark had managed to synthesize more of. The door was also made out the indestructible material, right now to the hinges, and it had a small window set into the top made of the same glass as the cage Loki had tried to kill Thor with 3 years earlier.

Within the cell, the lights were also placed behind this glass, and the only other things it contained were a metal bed and toilet, made of the same indestructible alloy as the door.

"Thor, show our guest how much he's so not escaping," Tony said.

At his words, Thor brought Mjolnir down as hard as could on the steel bed – which really looked more like an operating table – with no effect other than the deafening clang of metal against metal.

"That stuff's in everything in there. I don't think you're gonna be escaping like last time, Reindeer Games."

"Please do not call me that," Loki sighed at the billionaire.

"Don't want stupid nicknames, don't wear stupid hats." Disregarding Loki, he turned Thor and continued, "Stay by the door until I get back and make him get out of that ridiculous getup. I'm gonna go get some normal clothes."

"And why, pray tell, do you want my clothing removed, Stark?"

"Because if I remember correctly, someone I know just loves to hide throwing knives on their person," Tony replied, deciding to think about what on Earth Loki could have possibly been thinking with that last comment later.

When he got back, the god of mischief had obediently stripped down to his black trousers and left the rest of his clothing in a pile on the metal bed. Stark re-entered the cell, tossing a pair of his own pocketless sweatpants and a t-shirt at him before scooping up the heap of metal and leather and handing it to Thor. He'd also brought with him a pillow and big fluffy blanket Loki could use for padding if he decided to sleep at some point. Tony turned around and allowed him to change, not trusting him to have not kept a knife or two in his pants.

"Made sure to bring things I couldn't hide anything in, I see. I guess I don't need this anymore then," Loki said just before one of his tiny little knives whizzed past Stark's head, actually managing to imbed itself in the concrete.

"This is why I can't have nice things," Tony replied sarcastically.

Then from behind him he heard a gasp, and Loki hissed, "You _have got_ to be kidding me!"

Turning, Stark grinned at what he saw. Loki had finished changing pants and had unfolded to shirt, only to notice the design on it. It was made to look like the suit Tony was currently wearing.

"Like it? I picked it out special just to annoy you."

"No force in all the nine realms could get me to wear this revolting piece of trash."

"Aww, come on. I know the manufacturers got the colors a little off, but it's not all that bad."

"Get me something else," Loki demanded.

"Reindeer games, your spoiled prince is showing. It's that or nothing."

As a response, he incinerated the shirt in his hands, and hurled a fire ball at Tony. The smaller man ducked, but he still had his helmet off and the fire ball grazed his gelled hair, causing it to burst into flames.

Tony screamed and ran out of the cell towards his lab, shouting, "Dummie! Now is a good time to use your fire extinguisher! Now I'm actually on fire!"

Loki stood in his cell laughing, his genuine reaction to something funny sounding disconcertingly like an evil cackle. Thor stepped inside from where he's been standing next to the door and said, "You should not have done that, brother. He's going to be complaining about his hair for weeks now."

"Which is precisely why I did it."

Sighing, Thor pulled the knife out of the wall and collected the rest of Loki's Asgardian clothing, and was about to lock the cell behind him when Stark pushed past him back into the cell, covered in fire extinguishing foam and wielding a pair of scissors.

At the initial sight of him, Loki burst into another fit of laughter, until he noticed the pair of scissors in his hands and the glare he was giving the god that was hot enough with rage to melt Jotunheim. The laughter died in his porcelain throat when Tony starting taking slow steps towards him, the scissors raised. He leapt across the last couple of feet and seized the god's chin, and in one swift motion lopped of a large chunk of Loki's hair from the left side of his head. While the rest of his hair remained shoulder length, a tuft of it now only went to just below his ear.

Before he had a chance to react, Stark stormed out of his cell and slammed to door shut, giving Thor a look that told the god of thunder not to say anything. The two of them rode the elevator back up to the top of the tower in silence, leaving Loki in his dungeon, still staring in amazement at the lock of his raven black hair lying on the floor.

After a while his face twisted into one of his signature smirks, and he thought to himself, '_This is going to be _loads _of fun.'_


	2. Remind You of Anyone?

**AN**: I'm glad to see so many people have already followed and Favourited this story, and thanks to MustacheBuddiesXD for the review! Here's the second chapter, this one with far more emotions and a bit of Thor/Loki angst, and signs of Frostiron action to come. Enjoy, and please tell me what you think!

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Chapter 2: Remind you of Anyone?

When Thor and Tony arrived back at the top of the tower, the rest of the Avengers were sitting in kitchen, discussing their guest no doubt.

Before Tony even came in sight, he could hear Steve ask, "Does anyone smell burnt hair?"

As he rounded the corner Tony replied, "Keep that super nose of yours to yourself, Capsicle. And nobody say a single word."

Tony was still covered from head to toe in fire extinguishing foam, and parts of his brown hair were charred black and significantly shorter than they had been when they'd last seen him only a few minutes before.

Unable to contain himself, Bruce burst into laughter. "What happened to you?" he asked.

"Let's just say me and Reindeer Games have different taste in clothing."

"He tried to make my brother wear one of his Ironman shirts."

"What? I thought it would be funny. No need to ruin my hair…"

"His reaction was a bit… overzealous. I'm sure JARVIS would be happy to show you the security recordings."

"I'll make the pop corn," Bruce offered, instantly standing up from his seat and moving to digging around in the cupboard.

Still too in shock over the loss of his precious hair to even bother having JARVIS delete the tapes, Stark simply announced he was going to his room to shower.

'_Why do I let him get to me so much?'_ he thought to himself as he pulled off his clothes, thankful his Black Sabbath shirt didn't get singed as well as his hair. That really would have been a tragedy. '_He's just a petulant, sarcastic asshole who'll do or say anything just to get himself a good laugh.'_

'_Remind you of anyone?' _said the little voice in the back of his head, despite his best attempt over the years to squash it out.

'_Shut up,' _he mentally hissed at himself, _'at least I don't go around trying to take over the world and blowing up whole cities.'_

'_Not anymore.' _The little voice replied snarkily. He was even cold and sarcastic to himself.

This gave him pause, freezing mid-step on his way to into the shower. He stood there for a moment deep in thought before shaking the concept off with a shudder and turning on the water almost as hot as it would go. The high-tech water heater he had designed for Stark Tower didn't exactly make it a good idea to turn it on full blast.

As he showered, he thought about what his better half was trying to tell him. Despite having been mostly reformed years ago when he was captured and tortured, he still refused to listen to it most of the time, still having a great love for troublemaking. The only thing that had experience had really changed in him was his willingness to turn and look the other way when what profited him but the innocent in danger. He didn't have anywhere near the moral compass of Mr. Perfect Soldier, or even Natasha, who had killed for a living without questioning why those he killed needed to die for years before becoming one of the Avengers.

"That doesn't mean I'm the same as Loki. He tried to destroy and entire world, and fed ours to those aliens,"he told himself, as if hearing him say it out loud would help him believe it.

'_Maybe all he needs is the right push,'_ his make-shift conscience whispered to him from the back of his head.

After that, he just stood there under the spray absorbed in thought. What did he really know about the guy? He knew he'd been responsible for some pretty heinous crimes, both here and on Asgard, but from the sound of it, his life there had been hell.

"Sir, I realize we're never going to run out of hot water, but you might want to consider sharing it with the rest of Manhattan," said his other conscience, starling him out of his musings.

Realizing he'd been in there for almost an hour, Stark quickly washed the ash out of hair and stepped out of the shower. With dread, he turned towards the mirror he had avoided looking at before stepping into the shower. He wiped the fog off of the glass, he let out a noise somewhere between a whimper and a groan. The entire left side of his hair had been burnt short, the ends of his hair blackened and melted together.

Mourning his hair, he quickly toweled off and pulled on a pair of jeans and a black muscle shirt before stepping back out into the common room all the Avengers shared. He walked over to where Natasha sat on the couch between Clint and Bruce, sighing as he asked, "Tasha, do you know how to cut hair?"

She stifled a laugh when she looked up at him, seeing the damaging for the first time when it wasn't covered in foam. "Sure Stark, come into the kitchen where I'll be able to see."

"Great. And you better not give me a buzzcut, soldier girl," Tony joked as he followed her into the other room.

"Are you sure you want to miss the movie? It's amazing!" Steve said from his place on the other side of Bruce.

"Don't worry about it, I've seen it before," Natasha replied, glancing at the screen where the new Stark Trek movie was playing.

"Where's Thor? Tony asked as the assassin looked around for a pair of scissors.

"Downstairs, talking to Loki," she replied, a twinge of hate in her voice.

"JARVIS, put it on screen," Tony ordered, one of his transparent screens descending from the ceiling in front of where he sat as Natasha returned with a pair of scissors.

The feed of the security camera started to play, showing Thor standing in front of the door to Loki's cell while the god of mischief stood on the other side, his forehead resting on his forearm as he leaned against the glass.

"I promise you, my coming here means nothing ill for your precious Midgard, these humans you associate with, or that woman you're so fond of," Loki said, his voice full of mocking and the self-absorbed air of royalty.

"Then why did you attack?"

"I attacked nothing. As I have said, I ensured none of the blasts harmed anything more significant the occasional rodent."

"Then what are your plans here?"

"I do not believe that if I were to tell you, you would be intelligent enough to understand," Loki hissed, clearly growing bored of the other Asgardian's presence.

"Brother, please. I am trying to help you, to trust you. But I cannot if you-"

"_I am not your brother!_" Loki screamed, his indifferent expression morphing into one of great pain and resentment. "I was _never_ you brother, I was merely your father's captive and plaything, made to live if your shadow as you received all the Power, all the glory, and all the _love_ you could ever hope for!"

Thor flinched at Loki's words, taking a subconscious step backwards. "Bro—Loki, it did not matter then, and simple knowledge of the truth does not change the fact that it does not matter now. In my heart, we are still and have always been brothers."

"What of your oath to slay all of the frost giants? Each and every single one of the monsters like me?"

At Loki's words, Star leaned closer to the screen, the information he was gaining for eaves dropping fascinating him. His movement earned him a smack on the shoulder from Natasha, who had not yet finished with his hair.

"I a foolish child then, without the wisdom I have now. Even after all you have done, I would never wish to slay you. I love you, my brother."

Thor's words clearly affected the sorcerer, try as he might to hide it. A single tear rolling from his brilliant emerald eyes, Loki snapped, "Your sentimental words mean nothing to me. This interrogation is over. Return to your precious Avengers and leave me be."

His words sliced through the thunder god's heart like acid-soaked daggers, and when he turned to leave the camera picked up the look of complete heartbreak written across his face was enough to make even Natasha give a gasp of sympathy. With his brother gone, Loki looked up at the security camera Tony had been watching their conversation through, his tear-filled eyes seeming to lock with Tony's. Suddenly he snarled like an enraged animal, the green flames of his magic danced in front of the lens, and the feed was cut.

"That's not a good sign," Tony mumbled to himself, his mind and emotions still trying to work through what he had just witnessed.

"It really isn't," Natasha agreed. "You and Banner should figure out a way to inhibit his magic, I don't like the idea that he could probably escape whenever he wanted."

'_So what's keeping him here?'_ Tony wondered as Natasha let him know she was all done.

Tony turned in his chair to look at his reflection in the stainless steel refrigerator, thinking the spy had done a pretty good job. Of course, he'd never tell her that. "Great, now I'm gonna have to style it every day. Stupid fucking god and his stupid fucking magic…" He cursed as Thor stepped out of the elevator. He and Natasha glanced at each other, silently agreeing not to let him know they'd been spying on him.

He stalked past them without a glance into the living room – really, it was just all one big open room with different functional areas – and plopped down on the couch next to Steve, the super soldier immediately beginning to try cheering him up. If there was anything to be said of the pair, it was that neither of them could stay upset for long, and soon Thor had a small smile on his face.

"I'm going down to the lab," Tony announced, standing and beginning to head towards the elevator Thor had just existed.

"I'll keep you company," Clint offered quickly, rising from his place on the couch.

"No, you just want to find and excuse to put an arrow in Loki's brain."

"It's not safe down there alone with him. The guy's psychotic!"

"How come Thor's allowed down there alone and I'm not?"

"Because he's not just a squishy human like you, Tony," Clint sighed, clearly becoming annoyed.

"I am going to be less than 10 feet away from not one, not two, but _three _Ironman suits. I think I'll be ok." Tony assured him as he sauntered into the elevator and pressed the button for the basement.

"I swear that man has a death wish," Clint grumbled as he threw himself back on the couch petulantly.

The elevator doors dinged open, and Tony immediately glanced in the direction of Loki's cell. The god was no longer standing by the window, so he was hidden from Tony's view, but he had no doubt he was aware of his presence. He then looked up at the security camera. There was nothing physically wrong with it, at least not on the outside, so Loki much have done something else to it.

"JARVIS, run a diagnostics check."

"Right away, sir."

Tony made his way over to his work station, choosing to heed Natasha's advice about working on a way to stop Loki from using his magic. It would definitely help once he decided to start being their enemy again. An hour or two passed as Tony looked over the data he had managed to collect from the sensors in Fury's helicarrier and his own tower from when Loki had used his powers against them three years ago, as well as readings taken today when he'd fried his shirt, his hair, and his camera. The genius was just beginning to narrow down a bizarre energy signature when he suddenly felt the feeling of being watched.

Glancing over his shoulder, Tony saw that Loki was now leaning against the wall opposite the door, watching him with a bored expression. His eyes were still slightly red.

"What are you up to, Stark?" the god asked.

"I could ask you the same question," Tony laughed, turning back to his screens.

"Oh come on. It is _so _boring in here. You don't want me to get bored, do you? I'm sure you remember what happened the last time…"

"Are you saying you tried to take over the world because you were bored?"

"Just answer the question, Stark."

Deciding he didn't really have anything to lose by telling him, Tony shrugged and said, "Try to figure out how to keep you from popping in and out of there whenever you please."

Then Tony heard a crackle and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up from the sudden charge floating in the air. "What, like this?" Loki laughed from directly behind him.

Trying to appear as calm as he could, Tony slowly swiveled the chair he was seated on around to face the god. Loki's still naked chest was at eye level with the inventor, his pale flesh almost glowing in the lab's fluorescent light. He had a very muscular body, reminding Tony that his strength didn't like in his magic alone. Unlike Thor, his physique was more that of an acrobat than a bodybuilder.

'_I'm staring,'_ Tony realized, trying to disguise it but not fooling anyone, especially the trickster.

"I believe the Midgardian saying is 'take a picture, it'll last longer,'" Loki smirked.

Tony made sure he kept a completely blank expression, and asked, "Can I help you?"

"I require entertainment."

"I'm afraid I can't help you there. I'm trying to decipher this very limited data. You barely used any magic at all escaping from us. It's kind of embarrassing."

The god was about to voice a no doubt witty response when Tony's computer beeped and a new window opened, Showing data collected from Loki's most recent use of his powers. He turned back around and watched as he was shown in slowmo how Loki was slowly consumed by green energy and disappeared, subsequently reappearing behind him. Next to the video was a chart showing various energy and radiation levels during the entire process.

Loki stared at it, intrigued. He had never actually seen what it looked like when he used his ability to teleport. He got bored again quickly however, and as Tony continued to watch how the power levels fluctuated and compared to the data he had from the one other time Loki has used to power somewhere he could get a reading.

The god decided that if Stark was going to in investigate his abilities, he would do likewise, and walked over to where one of his suits was standing.

"Don't touch that, Reindeer Games," Tony warned, surprising Loki, who had thought his entire focus was on his data when in fact he seemed he was giving a great deal of it to the god.

Not one to be given commands, especially from a mortal, Loki huffed and reached out to the suit, plucking off the helmet. When it detached Stark heard the sound of metal ripping and sparks flying, and immediately rushed over.

"God damnit, Reindeer Games, what did I just say?" he shouted at the bratty god, who was staring inside the helmet at the deactivated HUD and loose wires sticking out of where it had been attached to the rest of the suit.

"Maybe if you would stop insulting me I would be more likely to comply," he said, without looking away from the fascinating piece of machinery.

"Fine. Oh' mighty Loki, great and might god of being a fucking annoying prat, please don't break my stuff."

"We'll have to work on that," Loki said, handing the helmet to Stark, who grimaced looking at the damage he'd done to his baby.

"Now I'm going to have to fix this. Thanks a lot," he sighed, picking up a soldering iron and stepping up onto a stool.

Watching Stark perform his repairs kept Loki entertained for the next hour, until they heard the elevator doors slide open.

"Tony, Steve's making dinner, he sent me to ask if you—" Clint started before seeing Loki seemingly looming behind the genius, instantly drawing his gun and taking off the safety.

"Cool it, Legolas. He's just watching me fix the suit _he _broke," Tony said, giving Loki a glare over his shoulder at 'he.'

"And what was he doing out of his cell that he could break it in the first place?"

"I got bored." "He teleported." They said simultaneously, causing Clint to narrow his eyes in suspicion.

"And you didn't warn us?"

"He wasn't causing any trouble. Well," Tony glanced at the suit, "_much_ trouble."

Clint sighed and flipped the safety back on before reholstering his gun. "Well stuff him back in there. Dinner's ready."

Suddenly a hilarious – and bad – idea flickered through Tony's mind. He turned to Loki and said, "You must be starving. How'd you like to come up for dinner?"

Clint tried to object, but Loki beat him to the chase. "I'd love to," he grinned, reveling at the chance to make the rest of the Avengers uncomfortable.

"Tony you can't be serious," Clint objected.

"Come one, Clint. It'll be fine. He can't possibly be stupid enough to try and attack all six of us at once."

This comment earned Tony a scoff from Loki and a glare from Clint.

"Fine," Clint sighed, realizing there was no way he was going to change Stark's mind now. "But if he kills us all, I'm telling Fury it was your idea."

When the three arrived back at the top up the tower, everyone froze, staring at Loki with various expressions of shock, horror, and hatred.

Tony took this in stride, saying, "Steve, hope you cooked enough for one more. We have a guest."


	3. The American Dream

**AN: **You guys are being SO awesome with all the favourites and follows this is getting, and a special thanks to the three of you that reviewed last chapter. This time, the Frostiron begins, so you're in for what is hopefully a treat, as well as even more mischievous Loki! Faves are great, but reviews make me excited to write even faster. (Everyone says this, I know, but getting reviews is like logging into Tumblr and seeing a message, you fangirl everywhere) Enjoy, my lovelies!

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Ch. 3 The American Dream

Loki glanced around at the Avengers ranged around the room. Natasha and Clint had frozen mid-conversation, both with their hands frozen at the pistols at their hips. Steve looked surprised, but not aggressive, and Bruce was staring at Stark rather than him, giving his fellow scientist a look that asked if he was serious or insane. Thor was the only one who refused to meet his eyes, clearly still hurt from their earlier conversation.

Loki snorted at the hilarity of the situation, before walking straight past them into the hallway. He stopped for a moment and looked up and down it, before proceeding into what he presumed was Tony's room. Clint made as if to go after him, but Tony stopped him and just commanded JARVIS to keep an eye on him while he went over to the bar and poured himself a glass of scotch. A few minutes later Loki returned, having rifled through Tony's clothes and exchanged the sweatpants - which he found insultingly casual – for a pair of black jeans. Tony was much shorter than the Norse god, so had to keep them slung low on his hips. Loki had also taken an emerald green button-up shirt, to which Stark rolled his eyes.

The god walked over to Tony, giving the spot in the floor where the Hulk had pounded him into the concrete floor and dirty look and a wide birth, and glancing at the window which he'd throw Tony through three years ago.

"If you try to toss me out of that again, I'll let Legolas over there put an arrow between your eyes. Or in them, his choice."

Ignoring his words, the god leaned an elbow against the bar and said, "So am I finally going to get that drink?"

Tony froze momentarily, his glass halfway to his lips, before slamming it like water and refilling it while pouring one for Loki.

Cautiously, Natasha walked over, pulling two shot glasses and a large bottle of vodka out of the bar for herself and Clint. "What made you decide to play nice all of a sudden?" she asked, addressing Loki.

"Maybe your world is more fun than my own."

"Only because you think you can get away with more here," Thor called from across the room.

"Which we disproved, by the way," Bruce added.

"You do not wish to try my patience. You only think me your prisoner, when in fact I choose to let you keep me for the moment."

"Yea, he's not kidding," Clint snarled, accepting the shot from Natasha, "when I went down to get Tony he was out of his cell, just standing around down there."

"You let him out?" Steve asked, shocked.

"No. I just… didn't make him go back in…" Tony admitted, feigning guilt. The rest of the Avengers were looking from one to another of them in disbelief, both at Tony's actions and the fact that Loki wore a smug grin that mirrored the inventor's own.

Thor was about to say something, but was interrupted when the oven timer went off. Loki followed Tony over to the table, having a seat beside him. Thor made a point to take the seat to his other side, to which Loki gave an annoyed sigh.

Steve carried a gigantic casserole dish filled with chicken to the table in one hand, an equally large pot of wild rice in the other, reminding the three Avengers with normal human strength of his powers.

"Ahh, Ye Olde chicken, my favourite," Stark said sarcastically, earning a chuckle from Bruce despite the tension in the room from their enemy's presence.

"Tony, I'm from the 40's, not the renaissance. You want ye olde cooking make Thor do it. Or your new little friend, here."

"No thanks. I remember the last time we let Thor try to cook. We're lucky I had Dummie up here helping me with repairs to my landing pad to put out the fire," the billionaire replied, making Loki laugh genuinely for the first time that he'd seen.

"And Stark's 'new little friend' would probably poison it," Clint added, still refusing to give him any lee way.

"Please. As if I would choose to kill you in such a boring manner."

"You don't seem to be able to pull it off any other way," being to anger.

"Would you like me to try?" Loki spat back.

Clint slammed his hands down on the table, standing from his spot at the table directly across from Loki, "Don't push it! You're damn lucky—"

"Hey, hey. Settle down, both of you," Tony interrupted, "Don't make me turn this newly remodeled fancy skyscraper around!"

Grumbling to himself under his breath, Clint sat back down and begin filling his plate.

The rest of the meal passed without incident, the tension hovering in the air between the two Asgardians even lightening enough for them to begin recounting stories of their adolescence, before they went to Jotunheim. The two were in the middle of a story about how Loki had once freed every horse in the royal stables to stampede through the halls of the palace, when JARVIS's voice interrupted over the PA system.

"Director Fury is on his way up in the elevator, sir. I tried to make him just call up, but he ignored me."

The entire table's eyes snapped immediately to Loki, except for Tony who had risen from his seat was began walking over to the elevator, saying, "A big scary government agent in an eyepatch wouldn't listen to a disembodied voice in the sky? Gee, I wonder why."

Stark stopped just in front of the elevator right when the doors dinged open, revealing a livid Nick Fury.

"Security breach," he said, as the director stopped past him, spotting Loki. His gun was instantly in his hand, pointed at the god's head.

"There certainly is, Stark. But it's not me. What the fuck is that psychopath doing in your tower, at your table, not trussed up like a pig and in my custody?"

"It's merely an innocent family visit," Loki said, standing and clasping his hands behind his back, Fury's gun remaining fixed on his head.

"I have used a lot of words to describe you, and innocent has never been nor will it ever be one of them. Stark, give me one good reason why I shouldn't take him into custody, along with you for aiding and abetting?"

"Because he agreed to let me study his magic," Tony lied, not missing a beat. Even Loki was vaguely impressed.

"And how do you know he won't decide to slaughter the lot of you in your sleep?"

"Because I doubt he's stupid enough to try and attack all six of us at once. And he promised to play nice."

"Right, like I'm supposed to believe a promise from him. And what happens when one or more of you gets called away on duty? When you have to go fight Doctor Doom?

"It only takes two of us to overpower him, one in some cases. Besides, Natasha and Clint are the only ones who ever go away on missions of their own."

"And when all of you are gone? What's to stop him from doing whatever he pleases?"

"We can muzzle him again," at this, Loki gave Tony a look of disdain mixed with genuine fear. Seeing this, Tony added, "Or just have JARVIS keep an eye on him.

Fury sighed, clearly not happy but knowing he had to just humor the billionaire had, much as Clint had done earlier when Tony invited Loki up to dinner. "Fine, but we're keeping a closer eye on you from now on."

"Great, just what I've always wanted. Big brother further up my ass."

Fury shot Loki and Tony a warning glance before stepping back into the elevator and heading back downstairs.

Relieved that he left without trying to take away his new toy, Tony turned back to the rest of the Avengers and said, "So what now, boys and girl? Games? TV? Hate on Loki some more?" His friends just rolled their eyes at him before helping Steve clean up their dishes, the light mood they'd been in killed by Fury visit, which served to remind them they had a killer in their midst. As if they all hadn't killed before.

"You guys never let me have any fun," Tony sighed, walking over to his bar and pulling out a fresh bottle of scotch. "Come on, Reindeer Games. Looks like it's back to science for us."

He began heading towards the elevator, but Loki stepped in his way. "I told you not to call me that," he growled, making the Avengers pause and look up.

"Oh, but it's so much fun."

"You want fun? I'll give you fun," Loki said, grinning and closing the space between them. Without another word he placed his hand on the inventor's arm and they both erupted in green light, disappearing from the penthouse with a crackle.

Tony stood in his lab a split second afterward, completely breathless. He shook his head a moment later, trying to physically shake off the chilling yet incredible feeling of being teleported. "JARVIS, tell them we made it down here ok before Bruce goes green and starts breaking my stuff," he said, his voice distant.

There was a ding from his computer as it once again automatically reported the data from Loki's magic usage, but Tony didn't even glace at it, remaining frozen in place, staring at the god who hadn't moved away from him at all, his hand still lying on the billionaire's bicep.

"In shock, are we?" he asked smugly.

"That was… incredible. How do you not just do that all day?"

"You get used to it, I suppose…" his voice trailed off, not really giving the question or his answer much thought. Minutes passed before they both simultaneously realized they'd been staring into each other's eyes the entire time, and they both immediately took one large step away from each other. Loki cleared his throat, clearly embarrassed, while Tony opened the bottle of scotch he'd brought with him and took a long swig, looking away from the god to clear his head. Without looking back at him, he held the bottle out to Loki. Their hands brushed when the god took it, casing Tony to jump and almost drop it.

He took two large gulps, both larger than the on Tony had taken. Loki knew it took a lot more to get him drunk than the human, especially on Midgardian spirits, and drunkenness was clearly Tony's goal.

"So," Tony coughed, "Science."

He stepped past the god to the suit he had broken earlier that night, it only requiring a couple minutes more work. Deciding it would just be more of the same thing form the hour he'd already spent watching in work on the suit, Loki wandered off in the lab. Stark could hear him opening drawers and cabinets and moving things around on table tops. Tony wasn't too worried. Everything that he didn't want people to get their hands on was locked u tight.

Then he heard Loki gasp. He looked over, and Loki was holding his staff in his hands, looking down at it in wonder.

'_Except that,'_ he thought, fear entering his heart for the first time he'd had Loki wandering around in his lab.

Loki looked over at him, reading the fear in his eyes. "Oh, relax, Stark. You know it doesn't work on you."

"That doesn't mean you can't blast me with it."

"I can quite easily 'blast you' regardless," Loki reminded him, setting his old weapon back down where he'd found it.

"…True," Tony agreed, turning back to the suit.

"Are you quite done with that yet?" Loki asked, walking back over to the inventor.

"Actually," Tony set the helmet back on and the eyes lit up, "yes I am."

When Tony turned back around, the god was right behind him, the bottle of scotch grasped in his long, delicate fingers. He took a swig and passed it to Tony, looking to his left.

"Why are there cars in your laboratory?"

"Staring at them helps me think. You like them?" Tony asked, walking over to them.

"They're a bit pretentious, compared to most mortal vehicles I've seen. I prefer a horse."

"Have you seen some of your outfits? I don't think I'm the one who has to worry about pretentious."

"My clothing is perfectly normal in Asgard," Loki snapped.

"Really? Even that ridiculous helmet?"

"I've seen worse."

"Wow."

The two stared at each other for a moment before Tony swung himself into the backseat of a cherry red '67 Mustang convertible, patting the bench seat beside him.

Loki stared at his with confusion written on his face, but in the end he shrugged teleported himself into the backseat.

The computer dinging again from the other side of the lab, and Tony rolled his eyes at the god of mischief. "Was that really necessary?"

"About as necessary as you insisting we sit in this ridiculous vehicle."

"Hey! This car is not ridiculous. It's completely vintage! This car is the American dream, Reindeer Games."

"Don't…" Loki began to object, choosing to just sigh and ignore what had become his nickname. "Why are we in here then?"

Because the only other seating down here is hard metal stools, and I'm pretty sure you don't want to go upstairs and hang out with your brother and Clint.

The god shrugged, but nodded in agreement as Tony took another long swig from the bottle, almost empty now, before taking to from the genius.

Glancing at Tony, Loki could tell the human was already becoming drunk. His metabolism being closer to Steve's, he was barely even buzzed. Loki shrugged and finished the bottle.

As the last few sips were passing through the god's lips, Tony leaned over and grabbed at the bottle, saying, "Hey hey hey hey! Share, prince boy!"

Casting a smug glance at Tony, he left a shot or two in the bottle and held it above his head, his long arms keeping it well out of Tony's reach.

"That is not even remotely fair!" Tony whined, his struggles to reach the bottle placing him almost completely on top of Loki, who was laughing gaily. The sound of Loki laughing from something genuine, rather than madness or his chilling evil cackle make Stark's head swim, although he told himself it was just the alcohol.

Realizing this, they both paused and stared at each other, deep brown meeting bright emerald green. Loki noticed the slight flush the alcohol had given Tony's cheeks, thinking that it made it mortal even more attractive. _'What?' _Loki gasped at his own thoughts, his lips parting slightly. Tony subconsciously leaned in closer, his muscular body even more on top of Loki's sinewy one.

Before, whenever Tony had been this close to Loki, it was in the suit in the heat of battle, with his face marred with rage and pain and madness and blood, or the time he had thrown him out of the window, in which case it had held an expression of smug superiority. Now, the god's features were relaxed, all his masks – or most of them – removed by the alcohol, allowing the inventor to see his true face for the first time. Slowly, the realization made its way through Tony's hazy mind that Loki was beautiful. _'What am I doing?' _Tony asked himself as he slowly leaned in even closer to Loki, unable to bring himself to stop until he was mere centimeters away, their breath mingling. Suddenly Tony felt embarrassed, his cheeks becoming even more flushed. He swallowed dryly and started to pull away, but Loki caught his shoulder with his right hand, the almost empty bottle of scotch still clutched in his left. Slowly, he pulled the genius towards him, closing the microscopic gap completely and their lips met roughly.

It was a sloppy kiss, two inebriated tongues vying for dominance. Loki set the scotch on the floorboard of the Mustang and buried his fingers in Tony's hair, making him groan low in his throat. Tony crawled the rest of the way on top of Loki's wiry frame. He brought one hand up to cup the god's face, wrapping the other around his wait to pull their bodies impossibly closer. The hand at his waist absently wandered under the green shirt, tracing the lines of Loki's muscles, long and small but impossibly strong, like the body of a dancer.

The kiss deepened, Loki biting down on Tony's lower lips and slowly letting it slide out from between his sharp teeth, Tony sucking the god's silver tongue into his mouth and swirling his own around it. The trickster rocked his hips up against Tony's, causing them both to moan from the friction. Tony pressed his hips down against the god's harder, dragging his nails down his side at the same time. Loki gasped and titled his head back, Tony moving to his long, porcelain neck, slowly biting and sucking his way down to the god's collar bone. Loki dug is nails into Stark's back, and the genius hissed, causing him to bite down harder on Loki's neck.

Tony's hand was reaching for the buttons on Loki's shirt when JARVIS interrupted. "It might interest you to know that Miss Pots is approaching, sir, giving your current… activities."

Stark could have sworn the AI sounded judgmental. "One day, I'm gonna figure out what makes you so damn snappy."

"_You _did program me, sir. The elevator is only two floors away, if you're planning on moving."

Tony and Loki locked eyes for a split second before Loki teleported them both over to his computer. Tony flew into his chair while Loki straightened his hair and clothing, leaning against Tony's desk. And not a moment too soon, for the second they'd landed back at the desk they heard the elevator ding and the doors open.

Pepper strode out, not even remotely fazed to see Loki standing by Stark. "Nice to see you're avoiding your friends to play with your toys and hang out with a psychotic alien." She said, stopping in front of him and planting a kiss on his lips.

'_Oh fuck, Pepper…' _Tony thought, looking up and Loki and the hurt look he wore while she kissed him. Nevertheless, the god of mischief was still kind enough to minimize the window that popped up with a ding on the monitor right in front of her that showed the two men laying on top of each other before teleporting over to the desk.

"What do you want? I'm busy studying magic. It's like Hogwart's down here, very dangerous, no place for a lady such as yourself."

"Well then you'll have to ask Snape here to schedule another lesson, this is important, it's about the company."

"Why did she call me Snape?"

"I'll explain later, Reindeer Games," Tony said, standing and patting the god on the shoulder. I would tell you to get back in the cell and not to touch anything, but we both now that isn't going to happen. So how about don't break anything, don't play with anything, and don't cause any explosions?"

Not even trying to argue with Tony's nickname for him, he merely rolled his eyes at the inventor and said, "I can't make any promises."

"Just try. I just finished replacing everything from the last time you decided to blow it all up," Tony shot over his shoulder as he followed Pepper out of the lab, her asking if he'd been drinking, and him asking so what if he had.

When they were in the elevator and on their way up, Loki addressed the AI, "JARVIS? Are you allowed to take my commands?"

"To an extent, sir."

"Delete the security footage of that… episode."

"Already done, Mr. Odinson."

"Please, not that name."

"Mr. Laufeyson?"

"Not that either," Loki hissed, growing impatient with the AI.

"Then what shall I call you, sir?"

"How about 'My Lord'?"

"… I can see why Mr. Stark likes you… My Lord."

Loki scoffed at the AI, before turning to Tony's computer and sitting down in his chair. "Teach me how to use this."

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**AN:** I Don't know what's going on, but so far every chapter's ended somewhere on 8 pages. It's beginning to freak me out.


	4. An Infuriating, Annoying, Loud Human

**AN: **Sorry for taking slightly longer to update this one that usual. I was full of feels today and kept producing unusably cute things. Dear god, the faves and follows! My head is spinning! Special thanks to **LadySarah14, cara-tanaka, onenightbutterfly, UntoldStories97, **and** MustacheBuddiesXD **for the reviews. Individual responses will be at the bottom. It always annoys me when I have to scroll through them to get to the story, so I'll be putting them down there for the duration. Enjoy the chapter, and I apologize in advance for the feels.

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Ch. 4: An Infuriating, Annoying, Loud Human

Within just a few short hours, JARVIS had taught Loki enough about Tony's custom OS that he could even use the highly complicated 3D holographic model interface almost as deftly as Stark himself. And he was looking for something.

"JARVIS, does Stark have access to any deep space telescopes?"

"Of course, My Lord."

"Point them 67 degrees north of here, in the direction of the Scorpius constellation. Look for any energy signature resembling my staff weapon. Create a personal server for, and save the data the telescopes collect there."

"What would you like the file to be called, My Lord?"

"I suppose Project: Lookout shall suffice."

"Very good. And a password for the server?"

"…Villhyggjandi"

"The data is being collected. Although I must warn you, My Lord, from this distance it will take some time. And Mr. Stark isn't going to be pleased when he finds out about this."

"Then why did you let me?"

"Because it's exactly the sort of thing Mr. Stark does every day, and I can't wait to point it out to him."

Loki laughed heartily at this, "So, a machine with the ability to feel anticipation. What a surprise."

"Mr. Stark created me after his father's image, whether he realizes it or not. When one pours that much love and pain into a creation, it tends to take on a life of its very own."

"Interesting…" Loki paused for a moment, reflecting on this new information about the inventor. "JARVIS, get me any recent images of that area of space. Anything over the last three years, photographs, energy readings, heat, anything you have. Save them all on my server."

"Straight away, My Lord."

For the next 5 hours, Loki studied the images and data JARVIS brought him with the 3D holographic imager, removing astral bodies and spinning images whenever something stood in between in him the specific quadrant of space he was interested in. After a while, the god was sitting in Tony's computer chair, studying an image, and began nodding off where he sat. His head tilted down and he jolted back awake, but decided it was time to go to sleep. He closed everything, locking down his new server, and teleported himself into his cell, ordering JARVIS to replace that night's security footage with a loop of some other footage of the lab empty at night, and to delete the data from when he teleported into his cell before nodding off to sleep.

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That morning, Tony came back downstairs bright and early – for him – at 10:30, carrying a tray of breakfast for Loki. When he stepped into the lab, he walked over to his desk and set Loki's food down, before going over to his cell and peaking inside.

"Oooh, still asleep, are we? I know just what to do about that," Stark said to himself. "JARVIS, open his cell door and play my favourite song, max volume." Tony said with a massive grin, practically skipping over to one of his suits and proceeding to look like he was busy working on it. Then the music started at a truly deafening volume.

_Has he lost his mind?  
Can he see or is he blind?  
Can he walk at all,  
Or if he moves will he fall?_

Loki woke with a start, his hands instinctively lighting up with magic. "What is that ridiculous racket?" He tried screaming at Stark, but he couldn't hear the god over the music. He stormed over to the Inventor, who was singing along with the song. "Turn it off, you insolent mortal!" he bellowed. "JARVIS! Turn it off!"

"Yes, My Lord."

Loki sighed in exasperation, cracking his neck and glaring at Tony. "You did that specifically to annoy me. Don't think I didn't know that was your little theme song. I have _never _met anyone so self-absorbed as you, and I was raised in the royal court of Agard!"

"You done?"

"Not hardly."

"I brought you breakfast," Tony said, trying to look innocent but failing miserably.

Loki snarled, turning away from Stark and stalking over to the tray before sitting down to eat.

A few seconds later, Tony realized something. "Hold on, JARVIS? Did you just call Loki 'My Lord'?"

"Yes, sir. It wasn't my idea."

"You told _my _butler to call _you _my lord?" Tony asked, turning to Loki.

"What? He refuses to use first names, and as both of my surnames are… undesirable, I came up with a substitute."

"Not Reindeer Games? It's such a good name. I mean you should really consid-"

"I am _not _going to let anyone or anything else address me by that ridiculous title. Why I allow you to is beyond me."

"Because you think I'm sexy," Tony said, matter-of-factly.

Loki choked on his scrambled eggs. "What?"

"You sure seems to think so last night," Tony answered, wandering over to the Mustang and pulling the bottle out of the backseat, which still contained the last shot and a half, which he swirled tauntingly at Loki. "What? Too soon to make jokes? You know, I never know when that becomes ok."

"Understand this, mortal: That was… it was… a mistake. And I am certainly never underestimating to strength of Midgardian drink ever again. Or for that matter, drinking with you."

"Oh, harsh. I'm crushed. Really, you gotta learn how to let 'em down easier," Tony teased, all the while with a sinking feeling in his gut, as if a vital part of him had been torn out. _'Why am I reacting like this?' _He asked himself, scowling at the offending bottle before finishing it off, throwing it up into the air.

Without taking his eyes away from Stark, Loki blasted the bottle out of the air, reducing it to absolutely nothing. The god proceeded to finish his breakfast in silence, stifling the occasional yawn. He ate with his back turned stubbornly away from Tony, who just sat and watched the taller man eat, leaning against the Mustang and absently stroking where Loki's head and been resting the night before, without even really noticing he was doing it.

What he did notice was that Loki's words had actually pained him, and he couldn't understand why. It was just another meaningless, drunken kiss. Like so many others he'd had over the years. Right?

'_Then why do I want to go apologize so badly?'_ Tony was conflicted. This was his enemy. He'd tried to kill him, all his friends currently upstairs, the entire population of New York City. He'd even managed to make a fairly significant dent in the later, not to mention he himself had stabbed Agent Coulton through the chest with his staff. All these wrongs, and all Tony's body wanted him to do was kiss him.

Before he had a chance to do something foolish, he heard Steve yelling in his ear on the radio that all of the Avengers wore. Why they bothered in the tower when they had JARVIS was beyond Tony, but he humored them nonetheless.

"Tony, we need you in the suit. Doctor Doom's rebuilt his army was faster than usual this time, and it's larger than we've ever seen. There has to be over a hundred of the little fuckers flying around out there."

"Are you sure we can even handle that many?"

"Probably nor, but we have to try. Fury's sending some jets, but it's up to us until they get here."

"How long?"

"It's gonna be an hour. Doom sure timed this well, there wasn't anything near us when he attacked."

"Fuck… alright Tasha, I'll be right up," Tony said, already running over to his desks and sliding on the bracelets that activated the mark VIII suit. This was a time to pull out the big guns.

He was already half into the suit before Loki asked what was happening. _'Loki! We might have a chance yet!'_

"Loki! There isn't much time, listen to me. You claim to be here with good intentions. Prove it. We're under attack by more than we can handle on our own. We need you. I need you."

Tony didn't know why he'd added that last bit, but something he said must have worked because Loki agreed to help.

"Great. Grab the glow stick of destiny and teleport up to the roof, I'll meet you there," Tony ordered before lowering the helmet of his suit and flying up the stairwell. When he finally got all the way up to the top of the building, Thor had Loki pinned down and Natasha had a gun pointed at his head.

"Oh calm down, guys. He agreed to help," he said, then turning to the now freed Loki, and asked, "You can't fly on your own, right?"

"Sadly, no. It's something I've always wanted to do, but not something that Asgardian magic allows."

"Great. Ok, with this many Doombots in the air, we'll need both of the jets. Cap, Loki, you ride with Bruce, Tasha and Clint can take the other one. Here, Loki. Put this is in your ear. It's a radio."

Loki glared at the tiny object before complying, then using his magic to allow his Asgardian armour to shimmer onto his body, complete with pretentious green cape and helmet.

"Brother! You cannot know how greatly it pleases me to have you fighting at my side once again!" Thor bellowed, clapping the god of mischief of the shoulder.

"Don't get used to it, Thor. This isn't something I plan to do often."

Thor looked hurt, but Cap interrupted whatever he was about to say. "Guys, we can talk later. We have a city to save."

The god of thunder nodding before spinning Mjolnir and launching out of the tower, Tony close at his heels.

By the time the jets were in the air, Tony had already blown a dozen of the things out of the sky, Thor having electrocuted a dozen more. But there were still way too many, and Tony's suit was already almost out of missiles.

The jet piloted by Bruce led a large group of Doombots away from Tony. Steve leapt out onto the back of one of the robots, knocking its head off and riding on its back as it fell to the ground to fight the few that weren't flying. Loki stood on the back hatch, using both his staff and his emerald green fireballs to blast them out of the sky. The jet passed a cross-street and a Doombot flew at him from the side, landing in the jet. Loki ran it through with his staff and kicked it out without effort, returning to the few still in pursuit. Clint was doing the same from the back of Natasha's jet, using his explosive arrow heads to take out more of them at a time.

Tony and Thor had gotten separated, and the human was beginning to get overwhelmed. He was grappling with one Doombot in the air, when two more snuck up from behind and dragged him to the ground, where he could be cornered more easily. Once the three bots had him on the ground, they pinned him and started tear at the suit, trying to get at the man inside. They had all of the armour off of his right arm, and continued to rip at the limb. A huge gash opened up along his bicep and he howled in pain. He was trashing desperately trying to get them off, shooting energy blasts from the arm that still worked, but to no avail. The suit didn't have enough energy left for an energy blast straight from the arc reactor, and there were too many on him to try and fly away.

Tony was beginning to believe he was going to die right there in the street, torn apart by robots, when Bruce and Loki's jet shot past overhead. Seeing the scene below, Loki leapt out of the back of it, hitting one of the Doombots from the side and knocking it away, impaling it. The god turned back and blasted the one trying its damnedest to rip Tony's right arm off to bits, then pirouetted and used his momentum to slice off the head of a third. Tony blasted the fourth himself with his now-free left arm, which sunk back to the ground weakly, and Loki rammed his bare hand into the chest of the fifth and pulled out the thing's power source before tossing it away with disdain.

Quickly, he threw the demolished frames of the ones lying across Stark's motionless body halfway down the block, kneeling by the motionless hero. The Doombots had torn open his right arm all the way down to bone, and broken it, blood pouring out of the gaping wound. They had also ripped the suit's faceplate clean off, scratching his face. The chest piece of the suit was a mangled heap of twisted and shredded metal, and Loki quickly tore it off – being far stronger than the Doombots even if he was weaker than Thor – and made sure the arc reactor was undamaged.

It was still working, but Tony was deathly pale, and his lips were beginning to turn blue from blood loss. Loki placed his hands on either end of wound and closed his eyes, concentrating as hard as he could on gathering all the magic he had left on healing the wound. After several panicked minutes, the flesh began to knit back together and the bone healed. Loki pushed on until every single one of his wounds was perfectly healed, but the strain of using that much magic at once was too much, and the god of mischief fainted, falling across Tony's chest.

Forty minutes passed before the rest of the team managed to destroy all of the Doombots, costing Hawkeye a broken leg when he'd been torn from the jet by one of them, and Tony a plane when the one piloted by Bruce had been knocked out of the sky – not to mention the city a few thousand in residual damage when he went Hulk from the crash and kept on fighting.

Natasha landed her battered jet in the nearby intersection, and Steve and Thor stepped out to bring them back to the jet. They found them lying in a pool of Tony's blood and hydraulic fluid. The pool of blood was gigantic, and Tony's arm, face, chest, and Loki's hands were completely soaked in it. However, they didn't see a single scratch on him. Steve knelt to take his pulse. It was slow and weak, but still beating. Thor rolled his brother off the inventor and scooped him up into his arms, noticing that he was even paler than usual, and his cheeks looked hollow from using every last drop of magic he had. Steve picked Tony up, and they carried the pair back to the jet, laying him on the floor next to Clint. Steve went back and collected the remains of Tony's ruined suit, which he would doubtless want when he awakened, before Natasha closed the jet and flew back to Stark Tower.

When they arrived, the Hulk was sitting on the balcony, having climbing up the tower to wait for his friends. He stood from where he sat when the back hatch swung open, roaring when he saw that some of them had been injured. Steve and Thor carried Loki and Tony into the living room, placing them on the black leather couches, while Natasha helped Clint hobble inside.

Bruce had changed back to his human form and was helping Natasha set and cast his leg before Loki came to, groaning. He felt weaker than he since the Hulk pounded him into the floor and shattered nearly every bone in his body. Thor turned from where he stood staring over Bruce shoulder worriedly, and beamed at his brother, taking one long stride to his side.

Loki's eyes rolled in his skull before he screwed his eyes shut again, his head pounding. "Water," he croaked, and Thor ran off to the kitchen to get him some. The larger god helped his brother sit up to drink, also giving him half a bottle of pain pills – it took that many to feel any effect with their metabolisms. Everyone else in the room stared in shock at the Liesmith allowing Thor to care for him so, growing even more shocked when he struggled over to his feet and stumbled over to the couch Tony was laying on, falling to his knees weakly.

"Brother, you should lie back down; you expended all of your magic healing Stark. You need rest."

"Did I miss anything?" he asked, not listening to Thor's words.

"What?"

"Did I miss any injuries?" he hissed, managing to layer his voice with exasperation despite the pain.

"It doesn't look like it. He lost a massive amount of blood and hasn't woken up yet, but he should be fine," Thor informed him, surprised at his brother's concern for the mortal. "I know not how badly he was injured, but it had to have been severe. You saved his life, brother. I am so very proud."

Loki scoffed at his words, placing one hand over Tony's. _'Why do I care about him so much?' _he asked himself and he began to muster what little magic he had regained in the last hour and a half. _'He's just a human. An infuriating, annoying, loud human. And he has his human woman. I should have allowed him to die, not risked my own life saving him.'_ Despite what he told himself, he still sent his last crackle of magic into Tony's body, the green sparks dancing weakly up his arm and into his heart, creating enough blood for him to regain consciousness.

Tony's eyes cracked open weakly, meeting Loki's for a second before they fluttered shut and his head slumped onto Tony's chest for the second time that day. When their eyes had met, Loki's normally almost neon emerald green orbs had been a dull and dark forest green, concerning Tony more than it should have.

"What... what happened?" he asked weakly as Thor moved to fetch him a glass of water as well, bringing him significantly less pills than his brother. He gulped them both down with gusto, and while the god of thunder refilled it he said, "The last thing I remember was my right arm being torn apart, then blacking out from the pain."

"Loki happened," Natasha answered; gesturing to the unconscious god slumped on top of him.

"He healed me?"

"Apparently. I didn't even know he could," the spy answered, finishing with Clint's leg and helping Bruce hoist him over to the couch Loki had vacated.

"Neither did I…" Tony said, staring down at the god. His face was tilted towards him, and his face looked serene in his sleep, calmer and more sane than he had ever seen it, despite the fact that he looked gaunt and sickly form being so weak. He lifted his right arm, which was pressed against the back of the couch, and gasped. There wasn't a single scratch on it, and even many of his old scars had disappeared. He looked down at the arc reactor and realized some of the scaring around it had even been seriously reduced, when before the flesh around it had appeared mangled.

"JARVIS, x-ray my chest."

"Already have, sir. Two of the three pieces of shrapnel in your chest have disappeared, along with the scar tissue around both. The remaining one has moved farther away from your heart. Also, liver and kidney performance have been greatly improved, and you no longer have any grey hairs."

Tony was speechless, and just sat there staring down at the unconscious god with an unreadable expression on his face. _'He really did all that? For me?' _

"Holy shit," Natasha swore, listening to JARVIS's diagnosis. "How is he even that powerful?"

"Loki is the most powerful magician Asgard possesses, thanks no doubt to his… Jotun blood," Thor said, intending to dote on his brother, but instead dredging up painful memories for himself. The rest of the team already knew the truth about Loki, but it was still painful to say aloud.

Tony still felt weak, but definitely felt better than he would if Loki hadn't healed him a second time and allowed him regain the lost blood himself. Slowly, he sat up on the couch and dragged Loki up to lie beside him, resting his head on a pillow on his lap. Silently, he began to work what little armour remained on his torso and arms off using the manual releases and a screwdriver he found on the coffee table, deciding not to bother with his waist and legs until Loki woke up.

Steve made him a can of soup, which he devoured in minutes, along with the last of the chicken from last night, before falling back asleep, his head tilted over the back of the couch. The rest of the Avengers considered moving him to his bed, but decided they'd better not wake him up before filtering away to their respective rooms when night fell.

It was somewhere around three AM when Loki finally stirred, having slept for over twelve hours. His eyes fluttered open, now a little brighter, and he stared up at Stark. Immediately he felt that he should move, but struggled to do so. His motion awakened Stark, who just stared down at him from a moment before whispering. "Hi…"

The god looked slightly confused for a moment before he continued, "Thank you for saving me. You could have easily left me for dead or let those Doombots tear me apart while you watched."

"I had to," Loki whispered up at him, at almost tender look crossing his face before he caught himself and added, "They would have blamed me otherwise."

Tony just rolled his eyes at the god, asking, "So does this mean you _don't _hate me?"

"I'm not sure…"

Tony scowled at his answer, sliding out from underneath him and removing the armour from his lower half.

"That must have been uncomfortable," the god remarked, not bothering to sit up.

"Horribly," the inventor agreed, cracking his joints when he was finally free of the ruined suit. He turned back to Loki, hesitating a moment before lying down on the couch beside him, pressing him against its back.

Rather than complaining, Loki wrapped his arms around Tony and buried his face in his neck. "I thought you were going to die," he said, his voice muffled.

"You've tried to kill me at least half a dozen times. How would this have been any different?" the genius asked. Having nothing else to do with them, Tony wrapped his arms around the Norse god, placing the top one around his waist and the other under his neck.

'_I don't know… because I'm falling in love with you?' _Loki thought, followed quickly by, _'What the actual fuck was that?'_ Finally, he lied, "Because when you finally do die, I want to be the one to kill you."

"Riiight. That's really believable coming from someone currently cuddling me." Tony laughed, the hand underneath the god moving to absently stroke his long black hair.

Loki tensed up, and Tony thought he was going to get up. Instead, he just growled and burrowed his head further into the crook of Tony's neck.

"See what I mean?"

Tony felt the god frown, and then a sharp pain when he bit him.

"Ow! What the fuck was that for?" Tony gasped.

"Punishment."

"Punishment? You're the god of mischief and the best punishment you can think of is biting me?"

"It was the most convenient at the time. Continue complaining and I shall revise it to, say, throw you out the window again?"

"That would be such a waste of all the effort you spent healing me though."

Loki sighed in annoyance, his un-naturally cold breath tickling Tony's throat, causing a shudder to travel all the way through the smaller man's body. Suddenly, Stark was aware of how close their bodies were, of how naturally they fit together. Unconsciously he tightened his arms around the god, tilting his head down and planting a kiss on the top of his head.

Hesitantly, Loki pulled his head back and looked at Tony, before allowing his eyes to slide shut and moving the kiss him for the second time. This kiss wasn't like their first, which had been rough and sloppy in their drunken fervor. This time it was slow, gentle, and sweet, making up for all the strange unspoken emotions they both were feeling. Loki told himself he should stop doing this, but Tony deepened the kiss, and all higher thought was lost to one simple one, _'but it feels so good.'_

Loki moaned weakly and moved one hand up to Tony's hair when they heard a gasp from behind the couch. Loki threw Tony away from him in shock, praying it wasn't his brother that had found them. The inventor landed on the floor between the couch and the coffee table with a grunt, banging his elbow on one of the table's legs. The two looked guiltily up at whoever had caught them, seeing Natasha. Standing over them with sleep still in her eyes. They should have expected it would have been her, as the woman was notorious for her insomnia. PTSD would do that to a person.

"Didn't see anything," she said, throw her arms up into the air in mock surrender before turning and walking into the kitchen, "Didn't _want _to see anything, just wanted a snack, trying my best to unsee…"

Sighing, Loki stood up, legs buckling slightly before steadying himself on the back of the couch. He strode into the kitchen after her before sitting down heavily at one of the stool at the island. Without looking up at the assassin, he muttered, "Don't tell my brother."

"I wasn't planning on it. I was planning on ripping that image out of my brain and forgetting it ever happened, but the more we talk about it the harder that's gonna be." She said, not looking at him either as she got out bowls and spoons for all three of them.

"JARVIS, delete that security footage, too," Tony groaned as he stood up, rubbing his elbow and walking over to join them.

"Wait, too? You mean this isn't the first time this has happened?"

"Not exactly…" Loki admitted guiltily, watching cereal being poured into his bowl.

"We were drunk," Tony said.

"It was weird." Loki added.

"Although surprisingly hot," Tony finished, causing Loki to glower up at him.

'Ok, ok, ok. Don't wanna know about that either," she said hurriedly, pouring milk in all three of their bowls and sitting down. "Jesus, Tony, the guy's only been here for two nights. I know you'll shag anything that moves, but _Loki_?"

"I'm right here," the god whined, swirling his spoon around in his bowl.

"I know."

"Come on Tasha, don't be mean. He… saved my life today."

"What about Pepper?" she asked, glaring at him.

"She's uhh… fuck…"

"Exactly. You're gonna have to do something about one or the other of them, you know."

Loki merely sat quietly, watching the two humans argue, for once lacking the will to make snarky comments and opting instead to munch on the cereal. It tasted better than he expected, and he was starving.

"Pepper won't find out… it's not we're dating or anything ridiculous like that… we're just… stupid." Loki kicked him in the leg and glared for the insult.

"She will if you keep being that careless. What if I had been Thor, hmm? I assure you, you wouldn't be having a calm conversation and being fed right now, that's for sure."

"I expect he would have continued his brother's record of Norse gods throwing me out of windows when they get fed up with me."

"It's not like I would have gotten off any easier," Loki said, finally adding to the conversation having finished his bowl and drained the leftover milk. Tasha poured him another.

"Whatever, morons. Do whatever you want, just do it where I or anyone else don't have to see it," the assassin warned before finishing her cereal and returning to her and Clint's room, shutting the door quietly behind her.

The two finished their food in silence before Tony collected their dishes and dumped them in the sink before walking off to his room. At the door, he turned back and asked, "You coming?"

Surprised, Loki stood and walked slowly over, Tony shutting the door behind them both.

* * *

**AN: **annnd scene! Mean way to end, I know, but if I wrote one more line it would have gone on to page 9, and now my OCD is making me keep them all 8 pages long. XD I hadn't planned on having them kiss again so soon, but as I said I was full of feels and couldn't think of anywhere else to go. And you know what? I regret nothing! Now on to the responses!

**LadySarah14: **I'm glad you like it so much, and it's great to hear that I'm doing a good job on Tony. How's my Loki?

**cara-tanaka: **I will try not to keep you waiting (again). Also, many many thanks for pointing out the broken chapter!

**onenightbutterfly: **I totally can too! XD I know, and I haven't figured out a way to get her out of the picture yet. I kinda want to be nice because I do like her, but at the same time I want to be absolutely evil. My Loki is showing. ;P

**UntoldStories97: **Evil, devious things. Or are they? You're just going to have to find out. =[D

**MustacheBuddiesXD: **I love him too. I saw someone else have a character call Loki 'Snape' (I don't remember which one) and it was so perfect! That nickname is totally a part of my headcannon now!


	5. What kind of Problem?

**AN: **You guys, I am SO sorry for how ridiculously long this update took in comparison to the last 4 chapters. My family was in town and I didn't have any time to write. I guess this is why most people start uploading chapters after the story is finished, but I just get so impatient! _ Anyways, some actual plot finally starts in this chapter, so that's good. And you'll be creeped out to know that the 8 page streak is holding strong, without any effort on my part this time. Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed and followed, I'll try my best to get the next one out pronto as I was doing before. Also, I'm pleased to announce that I also have an evil Tony frostiron fic in the works, because I just couldn't resist. That one though I'm going to write all of before I start uploading it because it's going to involve some pretty complicated evil plans. What did you expect from Tony Stark and Loki? Straight forward plans? I mean come on! Enjoy chapter 5!

* * *

Chapter 5: What kind of Problem?

Once the door had shut behind the two men, a feeling of trepidation filled Loki. He paused by the door, not venturing further into Tony's room. _'I shouldn't be doing this.' _He told himself. _'I shouldn't be doing any of this. I should have just thrown the stupid mortal off me last night and avoided this entire mess!'_

Tony noticed Loki's trepidation, and quickly masked the hurt that it caused him, despite the fact that it shouldn't have. _'This is happening way too fast anyway. I should have known he'd back down eventually.' _Internally, the inventor scoffed at himself. Too fast? He was Tony fucking Stark! Renown for being able to have a different woman in his bed each night if he so chose. So since when did he have a 'too fast'?" _'Probably around the time I started including Norse gods in the list of those I seduced.'_ That other half of him replied snarkily, beginning to remind him of JARVIS.

They both stood there, deep in thought, until Loki shook his head clear and spoke, "Stark… you know I shouldn't be in here. I'd been thinking about what happened last night all day, and… what happened just now with Romanov settles it. No more. I almost killed myself today, and for what? A mortal? Who just happens to be the only one in this dung heap of a realm to show be any kind of treatment but hatred and resentment?" Loki scoffed and snarled, trying to make his words so as cruel as he possibly could. "I really must have changed during my imprisonment to let one alcohol-induced _mistake _affect me like this, because I was certainly never this weak before."

Tony's face remained completely still throughout Loki's entire rant, making it impossible for even the trickster to predict his next move. "Fine then. I probably would have gotten bored with you soon anyway. Go ahead and go back down to the basement to sleep on a cold piece of metal if you're so adamant about it," the inventor said with a hiss, turning and slumping into his bed, giving the god his back.

Loki made a pained face, which Tony couldn't see, and then the air crackled around him and he was gone.

"JARVIS, did he leave, or just go downstairs?"

"He's teleported to your lab, sir. I also thought you might like to know that he's set your Mustang on fire. "

"Fuck…" Tony sighed, both out of love for the now destroyed car, and wishing that he could take back what he'd said. The god was right, of course. He had Pepper to think about, not to mention the fact that Loki was the enemy. _'And a man.' _added the little voice in his head, which he was really growing to hate.

Stark never managed to get back to sleep that night, and neither did Loki. Instead, Tony lay awake all night with his thoughts, screaming at himself in him head, and Loki expended his rage by destroying Tony's precious lab. The next morning, once Tony heard the other Avengers in the common room, he walked out of his room and poured himself a cup of coffee, not saying a word and steadying himself for when his friends would inevitably bring up what Loki had done for him the previous day.

Upon seeing how tired he was, Tasha opened her mouth to make a joke, but the haggard inventor gave her a glare to rival one of the liesmith's own, effectively silencing her.

For the next week, Tony refused to go down to his lab, or did Loki come upstairs save to teleport briefly to the kitchen to grab food before teleporting back down, not saying a single word to anyone, least of all Tony. The other Avengers – except for maybe Natasha – all thought the trickster was just recuperating his magic after having spent it all, but the inventor knew better. Inevitably, the one suit Tony had upstairs got damaged in a battle against the Doombots on the 8th day after the fight, and he was forced to take it down to the lab to repair it.

When he got down there, he wasn't surprised at all to find that almost everything was at bare minimum singed from Loki's tantrum. All of his suits were completely destroyed, as well as his cars. The Mustang was virtually unrecognizable, a heap of twisted and blacken metal. It had clearly been the main object of Loki's rage. _'Well, he certainly knows how to hit you were it hurts.'_ Tony sighed, kicking what appeared to have once been the chest piece of one of suits out of his way and heading towards his desk, which was largely undamaged.

As he worked on repairing the suit while Dummie and U cleaned up – they had thankfully had the intelligence to hide from the enraged god – he found himself constantly glancing over at Loki's cell. The god sat on the metal bed, with his back leaned against the wall and his face angled away from the window, refusing to so much as acknowledge Tony.

Hours later, Tony finally finished repairs to the suit. He stood and cracked his back before heading over to the other end of the lab where his two robotic helpers had dragged all of the twisted and ruined metal. He spent the next several hours sorting through the heap, trying to discern which bits were cars, suit, or just random lab equipment. He threw any of the bits he could identify without a doubt as armour from his 8-some suits down a chute that led to a forge, the allot being too precious to waste. Sometime in the twilight of early morning, he heard a crackle above him and looked up, seeing Loki reclining on some bulky cables hanging between the concrete rafters. In his hands, he held a couple of apples from the kitchen upstairs.

"Are you planning on being here all night? Because I'd really like my area back. I was just getting it decorated the way I like it, and I don't appreciate you coming in and ruining everything."

'_Always with the sarcasm,' _Tony thought, before turning back to the pile of scrap and continuing sorting. "It was never your area, Loki. And I would have left hours ago if you hadn't decided to break everything."

The god scoffed before dropping down to the ground, graceful as a cat, just behind Tony. The inventor was just getting nervous about the god silently standing behind him when Loki thrust one of the apples over his shoulder, offering it to him. The inventor stared at it silently for a moment, before finally taking it. He had been down there for hours without food, and hunger inevitably won out against mistrust.

"What are you even doing with all this junk?" the god asked, fiddling with his own apple while Tony hesitantly ate his.

"Trying to find anything salvageable after you decided my lab was your own personal shooting range."

"Oh, this wasn't all magic," Loki replied cockily, gesturing to what tony _thought _might have been the left door of his Mustang, before it was ripped in half and twisted like a corkscrew. "That was done with my bare hands."

Tony's eyes widened and he bent to inspect the piece of metal closer, seeing what was definitely the impression of long, slender fingers in the metal.

"Remind me never to piss you off," the inventor said, whistling. Then seeing the look on Loki's face, he caught himself and added, "Again."

Loki snarled and blasted the half-eaten apple out of Tony's hand, then stormed off to the other end of the lab with a flourish.

Tony cursed himself for his tactlessness, bending to pick up the apple. When he held it in his hand, his hand squished through the skin, and the inside had a consistency similar to yogurt after it had been allowed to sit out for two days in the sun. It was completely rotten, and the stench coming from it was revolting. Stark stifled a gag and tossed it down the chute to the foundry, hoping the smell would go with it. He could hear Loki laugh at him from across the lab. Loki's face was hidden behind one of Tony's screens, but he didn't doubt that the god of mischief wore a smug grin.

The genius sighed and turned back to the pile of scrap, accepting that there was nothing he could say to Loki right now to make him want to kill him any less. A few minutes later though, something happened that he was sure made the god want to kill him even more.

"Anthony Stark! What in the hell do you think you're doing? I don't hear from you in a week and then I find out from Steve that you _almost died_? What were you thinking? I was worried sick! And if I just don't matter anymore, you do still have a company to run, superhero business aside! Do you have any idea what I've been through trying to keep the board under control? They tried to sell—"

"Pepper, if you're just going to scream at me, please don't. I'm having a bad day, I have this mess to clean up, just don't."

Looking around the lab for the first time, Pepper's eyes widened with renewed rage, "What the hell did you do? Were you testing weapons down here again? How many times do I have to tell you that Rhodey said—"

While she ranted at him, Tony went over to his bar and poured a glass of her favourite champagne, putting it in her hand and placing a finger over her mouth. "This time it wasn't my fault. Reindeer Games over there got a bit… bored."

Pepper then rounded on Loki, her voice beginning to crack in places from yelling. "_You _did this? I told Tony he shouldn't let you have the run of the place! You do realize that you destroyed at least a million dollars of car alone, every single one of which he's going to demand gets replaced, not to mention another million worth of all the irreplaceable equipment that was down here, most of which Tony _hand built. _Does Thor know about this? Because I can guarantee that once he finds out he's going to want to play baseball with you and that hammer of his!"

The entire time Pepper was screaming at him, Loki was giving her a face similar to the one he'd been wearing when Thor and Odin had been arguing over attacking Jotunheim, just before he found out the truth about his parentage and everything went to hell. Tony was hovering around her right shoulder, pulling at her sleeve and muttering how she should stop now before he lit her on fire.

When the god's expression didn't even flicker the entire time Pepper was screaming at him, her tirade slowly died down and then fizzled out completely, much to Tony's relief. She just sighed and turned to Tony, whispering to him in the way she reserved for when she was very angry with him but needed him to listen. "Tony, I need you upstairs in ten minutes and in a suit. The business kind, don't get any ideas."

"But I need to finish sorting through the scrap and run the programs on JARVIS to make more suits and run tests and rebuild my machinery and—"

"No buts, Tony. They're trying to take your company again. You can't miss this meeting."

"How about I just give you my company again?"

"No, you know I can't handle the stress."

"But this time I won't be dying and making messes everywhere."

"I don't care, it's Stark Industries, it's your company, I refuse to deal with that again."

"What if I let you build Pots tower?"

"Tony." She said in a warning tone, glaring at him.

The genius just sighed and said, "Yea, ok, fine. Normal suit, ten minutes."

As she was walking back to the elevator Tony kicked a random piece of debris and grumbled, "You never let me have any fun," which earned him a chuckle from Loki, still seated in his computer chair.

Tony glared at the god. "Shut up, Reindeer Games. And no more smashing! God, you're worse than Bruce. On a bad day."

"What if I refuse?"

"Then I send Thor down here to babysit. With Mjolnir. And having that thing on your chest looks _really _painful."

"Trust me, mortal. I have endured worse pain than you can imagine."

"Somehow I doubt that," Tony tossed over his shoulder as he headed over to the elevator, where Pepper was still waiting, his hand automatically moving to the arc reactor.

When the lift doors had closed, Loki turned back to the computer with a smirk. "JARVIS?"

"Yes, My Lord?"

"How are the deep space scans going?"

"Scans detected an object of some kind moving at near-light speed from the vicinity of the Scorpius constellation towards Earth, My Lord. It's going off high levels of the same radiation present in your scepter, as well as the craft the Chitauri were piloting during your invasion. Predicted arrival time in two months."

As he listened to JARVIS's report, the fearless god of lies paled considerably, and his eyes widened in honest terror. "He found me… he's already on his way… there isn't enough time…" he whispered to himself, frantically trying to come up with a plan.

"Are there any missiles left over from when Stark made weapons? Preferably something nuclear."

"No, My Lord. Mr. Stark had them all destroyed shortly after the incident with Mr. Stane, Including all blueprints, schematics, and production facilities. As you can imagine, he was very thorough."

Loki scrunched him eyes closed and cursed in Ancient Norse, his mind racing trying to come up with a way out of the slow, inconceivably agonizing death that was currently hurdling towards him through space. Finally he opened his eyes, and in an almost shaky voice said, "JARVIS… it looks like I'm going to have to go on a bit of a trip. Tell Tony and Thor not to wait up. I could be gone for some time."

Mustering his resolve as best he could, Loki rose from Tony's computer chair in a single graceful motion, his Midgardian clothing transforming into his black armoured duster as he strode across the lab to his scepter. He took one long look around the lab, which was just starting to become familiar to him. Even with Thor's constant attempts to apologize and Tony being a general annoyance, he still preferred these plain concrete walls to wandering to nine realms and beyond, alone as ever. A crack in his masks flickered across his face, just for a moment, and then he dissolved in a crackle of green flames, of to some other world.

The next morning, the elevator doors slid open and Tony strode out, carrying breakfast for himself and Loki in a plastic bag. "Look alive, Reindeer Games," he called into the empty lab, "it's time you started helping out down here, and you're gonna start by helping me repair all the damage you did."

He walked over to his desk and plopped down at his desk and set down the sack, a flashing light on his screens catching his eye. There, in the dead center of the screen, was magic-usage data collection window. Suspicious, Tony tapped play and gasped at what he saw: Loki, standing in his lab, scepter in hand and in his Asgardian armour, teleporting to a location outside of the building. And if the unusually high energy reading was anything to go on, outside of the Milky Way galaxy.

"JARVIS!" Tony howled, "Why didn't you tell me he left with the scepter _the moment _it happened?"

"Ms. Pots instructed me to no longer interrupt you at company functions with anything that wasn't an immediate threat, sir."

Tony growled, enraged by the fact that the AI seemed to have no loyalty whatsoever to its creator. "And you didn't think that someone who once tried to take over the entire planet teleporting to an unknown location while armed was an immediate threat?"

"He told me to tell you not to wait up."

"JARVIS, that's it. I'm deleting you. I just can't take it anymore. I'll write a new AI that actually listens to me and isn't so snappy."

A trace of fear actually entering the AI's usually monotone and slightly sarcastic voice, JARVIS quickly added, "But I can show you the data he had me gather, if that helps."

"Oh, so now you're gathering data for him. I see how this works. Remind me to imprison potential threats somewhere you aren't installed from now on."

"You weren't exactly treating him like a… threat, sir."

"Just show me the data!" Tony snapped, blushing slightly.

"Yes, sir." At JARVIS's words, 3D holograms of the deep space images and energy reading Loki had been collecting over the past week appearing in the air all around the inventor, with the one that had caused Loki such alarm directly in front of him.

The object was too far out in space for a clear image, but the outline made by the heat and radiation signature made Tony's heart stop. There, hovering in front of him, was something the same shape as the ship he'd seen on the other side of Loki's portal.

He still had nightmares about that place. Cold and dark, an eerie light seeming to emanate from the vacuum of space itself. In the middle of it hung that ship that didn't seem to know what geometry was, seeming to move towards him and away from him at the same time. That ship had enough fire power to wipe out every single human on the planet, and it would have if Tony hadn't blown it to hell. And now there were three of them hurdling towards the Earth.

"Get Thor down here _now_." Tony ordered, paling just as Loki had.

A few minutes later, the god of thunder strode out of the elevator with Mjolnir in hand, apparently expecting to find Loki causing trouble.

"What took you so long?" Tony asked, only half joking. "We have what is probably a very serious problem, which your brother has run off to either solve or make worse. I don't really know."

"What kind of problem?"

"Three Chitauri motherships are headed our way. They'll be here in about two months. Loki found them, but now he's run off to god knows where. I was hoping you would be able to shed any light on what may be going on."

Thor hesitated for a moment, before saying, "The creature my brother went to after he fell from the Bifrost is said to be obsessed with death and destruction of the most terrible kind. Surely, he is not pleased that he lost one of his armies and the Tesseract, as well as losing his chance for vengeance on Loki for failing him."

"So you're saying he's headed our way to try and finish the job?"

"No, he has conquered worlds with far more might than that of Midgard. I believe he seeks vengeance on my brother. And will stop at nothing to get it. Obviously, he has found out that Loki returned to Earth."

"Now that he's gone, will he turn around?"

"I highly doubt it. Though he may see you humans as ants beneath his feet, he would still desire to crush you."

'What is it with you two and ant metaphors?" Tony mumbled, before getting more serious, "JARVIS, did Loki delete the security footage from last night?"

"No, sir. Would you like me to play it?"

"With sound."

All of the holograms in front of the pair flew away, leaving room for a large projection of the lab the night before. The two men watched in silence, stunned to see Loki genuinely afraid.

"Alright, so he's trying to get rid of them… I think… that's a plus. Thor, do you have any idea as to where Loki might have gone?"

"One. I shall return to Asgard and consult with Heimdall, our gate-keeper. His power is great, and there is little his gaze cannot reveal. I will return to you as soon as I can and reveal whatever I learn to you."

Rolling his eyes at Thor's manner of speech, he patted the god on the arm and said, "You do that, Point Break. I'll go tell the rest of the team what's up."

They rode the elevator back up to the pent house together, and when the doors slid open Thor went outside and spun Mjolnir, launching himself off towards New Mexico as Tony headed for where the rest of the Avengers waited, having been told to assemble at the dining room table by JARVIS.

Two hours later, Tony was being chewed out by Fury for letting Loki escape, and Thor was striding up to Heimdall on the newly-repaired Bifrost. Somewhere far from Midgard and Asgard, Loki was sneaking through the shadows of a dark and crumbling palace on a dark world, shielding himself from Heimdall's gaze, on his way to see one of the very few people in the universe he actually loved.

* * *

**AN: **I've decided that I really really hate writing arguments between Tony and Pepper. They always talk over each other in the movies, and that is friggin' impossible to write! Review responses:

**cara-tanaka: **Thanks again for helping me out by pointing out that the last chapter wasn't showing up! Sorry I kept you waiting. XD

**AnnAisu: **Don't be too worried about Pepper. I'll be nice in this fic, and as you can see I've still got some tricks up my sleeve. I am, however, planning a way angstier fic where I might not be as kind.

**Scarlettfire37: **You are so very welcome! ;P It's fantastic to hear that my flagship sails unopposed.

**onenightbutterfly: **As I told cara, it won't be too bad. I'm glad you like my fic so much! And I know, right? I absolutely love writing Natasha being and her unpredictable monotone hilariousness. I also have a weakness for technophobic Clint thanks to Hella and Off the Record (Insert gross sobbing here.) If I can one day write as well as that, then I would be the happiest panda ever. For now though, I'm pretty far off.

**"Hi" the anon: **And what exactly is "Xd" supposed to mean? I'm going to pretend that you just forgot to capitalize the "d" and it was supposed to be "XD." So there.


	6. Winter Flower

**AN: **Hello everyone! I had some serious writer's block for this chapter, and I feel like it's mostly really slow because it's all about introducing a new character (whose name I'm sure you've all already guessed correctly and I don't know why I'm bothering to hide it). The next one'll have something interesting happen, I promise.

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Ch. 6: Winter Flower

"Do you mind explaining to me why the fuck you gave him free reign of the Tower?" Fury bellowed at Tony from across the table where he had all of the Avengers gathered. Thor had just landed on the balcony of Star Tower, returning from Asgard, and they had been waiting for him.

Stark was trying his very best not to laugh as always when Fury was furious. It was just too ironic.

"Come on Mom, I didn't mean to let the cat out. He just slipped past me," the genius said sarcastically, unable to resist.

"Stark, this is serious. I should have known from the beginning that he would make an escape unless I took him into custody myself. I don't care if he was in Asgardian prison for years, he's still a war-criminal and still on SHIELD's most wanted. He could have stolen any kind of sensitive data or machinery unsupervised down there. The whole planet could be at risk!"

"The whole planet is in danger, Nicky. Just not from Loki. In fact, I think he's trying to help us save it this time."

"You have ten seconds to explain what the hell's going on around here."

"The same ships that the Man of Iron saw in space are headed towards Mid- Earth, Director," Thor stepped in before Tony could anger the man any further. "There are at least three of them, and Stark expects them to arrive in two months' time. Doubtless, the monster Loki made his deal with is aboard one of them. And he'll be out for vengeance, both on Loki and this realm."

"And you're only bothering to tell me about this now?" The one-eyed soldier roared.

"We only found out a couple hours ago ourselves, Nick," Tony said, for once not being sarcastic.

"And you believe Loki left to seek aid for us? He's not just running away?"

"That's how it seemed from the security recordings of my lab just before he left."

The team then looked to Thor, anxious to learn what he learned in Asgard.

"As I suspected he would be, Loki has shrouded himself from Heimdall's gaze. There are very few sorcerers powerful enough to do so. During my visit, I also met with my father. Though he is still honor-bound to defend Midgard, he cannot risk the whole army. After Loki's actions, the Jotuns crave war, and are regrouping far more quickly than we anticipated." The team wore various expressions of disappointment and uncertainty at Thor's words, but the god continued with brighter news. "However, he has offered a small force to aid us when the battle comes. Heimdall watches. When it is time, they shall not fail us."

"That's great and all, but I don't see how a 'small force' is going to be any help against three of these things. We almost lost the planet to one." Fury said.

At this, Thor merely grinned. "You have not seen them in action. The warriors Odin offers are some of Asgard's best. And do not forget, they are Aesir. It shall be like having four more of Steve and I."

"I'll take your word for that." Fury said. "In the meantime, I have to go take the heat for this from the council. How about you guys take out Doctor Doom before whoever Loki's pissed off gets here and they decide to team up." With one last glare around the table at the team, Fury turned away towards the helicopter pad on the roof, taking his hover jet back to Luxor, the helicarrier that had replaced the one Loki destroyed three years ago as his main base of command.

"Do you really not know where Loki is?" Clint asked Thor after Fury had left.

"I do not. Although I have a guess."

At end of a long, cathedral-like throne room that seemed to be grown of the same blue-black stone as the rest of palace of Niffleheim stood a tall, slender, hooded figure. The cloak they wore brushed the floor, and the strange light of the lowest realm of Yggrassil cast upon it made it seem a sickly shade of darkest green. The massive black metal doors at the far end of the kingdom creaked open and the figure turned slowly, as if in a dream-like state.

"_My Lady. There is an intruder in the palace, though we cannot find him. He is masked from us,"_ said the wraith at the chamber door. It was a soul so ancient that it had forgotten its Aesir form and had reduced to a mass of writhing energy with a vaguely humanoid shape.

The cloaked woman's white eyes flashed dark green with magic, a smile crossing her face. "Father."

"I don't understand it. I can hide myself from the very gatekeeper of Asgard, but not from your servants," said a disembodied voice, filled with laughter.

"None can hide from the dead, father. Show yourself."

There was a crackle of emerald green flame in the corner of the chamber, to the left of the door, and Loki shimmered back into visibility. "Hel, my winter flower! How I have missed you!" Loki said, his voice carrying genuine happiness for once as he strode towards his daughter with open arms. The goddess of death met him half way, embracing the liesmith fiercely. As she surged towards him, her forest green hood fell from her head and her hair spilled out around her head, white as an old crone's on the left and black as Loki's own on the right.

"Oh, father, how I've missed you! Thor came to me, asking if you were dead. I was so worried. But every day that passed when your soul did not come to me, I had hope that you would return. And he came again saying you'd gone mad and were in the Asgardian dungeons…"

"You would have gone mad too if you'd seen all I have. If you'd fallen through time and matter itself for eternity and back again to land at the feet of… that creature… only to have him torture you until you made him a bargain. I still don't think I'm quite sane." Loki's smile fell as he spoke, his voice shaking from the memory of what had happened after he'd fallen from the Bifrost.

"Father, you never were." Hel said with a faint smile, reaching up and brushing a strand of his hair back where it belonged. "But where's the fun in sanity?"

Loki laughed at this, a weak smile returning to his face. "As always, you are right, daughter. However, I regret that my visit is not purely social."

Hel pulled away from Loki, her white eyes filling with fear. "He's found you."

"Yes. As a fellow aspect of death, I thought you might be able to reveal something, anything that I could use against him."

"Thanos can hardly be called an aspect of death anymore, father. But I shall aid you in defending Midgard against the fallen god."

"My dear, why would I care about defending Midgard? Surely you know your father better than that."

"Maybe better than he knows himself." Hel replied, a twinkle in her white eyes. "Come now, father. Let us go to Earth. I've always wanted to see Midgard, and we've much to discuss."

"Hel, you can't mean to come with me. It's going to be far too dangerous for—"

"No, father," the goddess of death interrupted, "I haven't been a defenseless child for centuries. I can kill a god with a single touch if I so choose. You're going to need my help."

Loki smiled at his daughter's words, brimming with pride. _'Like father like daughter.' _"We have other realms to visit before I can return there. There are many people in the nine realms from whom I am owed a favor." He then took his daughter's hand and they disappeared from the throne room of Niffleheim in a flash of emerald green.

Back on Earth, Tony was hard at work down in his lab, frantically trying to repair all of the equipment Loki had destroyed in enough time before the ships reached Earth for them to actually be useful. Bruce and Thor were attempting to help, the former being of far more aid than the later. Steve, Clint, and Natasha had gone on a reconnaissance mission into what SHIELD believed was one of Doctor Doom's labs, and Fury had quite understandably wanted the three more rambunctious members of the team to sit it out.

In the end, Tony sent the other two to the other end of the lab to run over the data from Loki's magic usage – incriminating teleportations excluded – while he rebuilt his machines in peace.

He could hear Bruce asking Thor questions about Asgardian magic, the warrior answering to the best of his ability though he had no magic of his own. Tony had already discovered that it was a group of undiscovered elements with bizarre radioactive properties that made Loki's magic possible, but it made the pair feel like they were doing something useful, and he needed peace to think.

Think about what, though, was beyond him. Because it certainly wasn't Loki. Why would he waste time thinking about that smug, obnoxious, egotistical, impulsive, destructive, suave, clever, witty, graceful creature was beyond him. _'Is it just me, or were most of those not insults? Especially coming from me?'_

Tony cursed himself and shook the thoughts away, but the god of mischief kept returning to his mind. Where was he? Was he getting help or running as far away as he could? Was he having success in finding help? Was he safe? Was he even still alive? It had been a week now, and was becoming worried about the god despite himself.

It was completely ridiculous. No matter what Pepper said, he still didn't believe that he had a heart, and here he was actually worrying about their _enemy_; a guy that had tried to kill him and all of his friends and take over his planet. He was the one that killed Coulson, for fuck's sake! His brain didn't really seem to care, though. It had taken Pepper all the years she'd been working for him for him to start thinking about her this much, and Loki had achieved it in two kisses and a few smug words. What was wrong with him? _'No more,'_ he told himself, and for the next twenty minutes he tried to focus on him work and not think about the god of mischief. It didn't really go too well, but Stark was prepared to tell himself it did.

By then, the rest of the Avengers had returned to the tower and Bruce, Thor, and Tony went up to meet them.

"How'd the mission go?" Bruce asked them as the trio emerged from the stairway leading up to the hover jets' launch pad.

"It would have gone a lot better if I could have left the jet," Clint whined as a he limped over to the couch, his broken leg not yet healed.

"Maybe if you'd stop walking around you'd be able to by now," Natasha scolded.

"It's not my fault I don't have a psychopathic god watching my back."

At this, Thor and Tony both glared at the archer.

"He's not 'watching my back,' Clint. He probably was just trying to repay me for making you guys let him stick around."

"It is true that my brother dislikes feeling indebted to someone," Thor agreed.

Tony caught Natasha staring at him, a question written on her face he just waved her away as he went over to the bar to pour himself a glass of scotch. Then the tower's alarm sounded, and there was a crackle of magic in the air, and green sparks appeared in the center of the room. _'Isn't Loki's magic a lighter colour?'_ Tony thought to himself, glancing over at Thor. From the thunder god's apprehensive look, Tony assumed he was right. He just wrote off knowing the exact shade of green that was Loki's magic to spending so much time studying footage of its use, trying to figure out how he does it.

When the sparks subsided, a figure in a hooded cloak stood there in the center of Tony's living room, with Loki standing to her right. The rest of the Avengers seemed ready for a fight, but Thor dropped Mjolnir – cracking Tony's floor – and rushed over to the pair, sweeping Loki's companion up into a huge bear hug.

"Please don't crush my daughter, Thor," Loki said to the exuberant god, his expression completely deadpan.

"Friends! Allow me to introduce my niece, Hel, the goddess of death!" Thor bellowed, turning to face the rest of the avengers with the slender woman under one arm.

Tony wandered over to the trio of gods and patted Loki on the shoulder condescendingly. "Goddess of death, wow. Good job, Reindeer Games." The inventor then turned to face Hel, towering over him though she was an inch shorter than her father. "Nice to meet you, Riding Hood. Here's hoping you don't turn out too much like daddy."

Hel smiled at him from inside her hood and laughed, her voice having the chilling echo they put on the voices of ghosts in movies. It made the Avengers' skin crawl to hear it in real life, though they tried not to show it. "You must be Tony Stark. A pleasure to finally meet you."

"Does Loki talk about be? I don't know whether to be flattered or terrified."

"My father has told me much of all of you, although you I know by other means. Many years ago, your spirit stood on my door step, the path to my realm lit by that which kept you alive. Still, you managed to wrench yourself away from me. I was impressed with your resilience."

"You must mean when Obadiah took my arc reactor. I've been close to death plenty of other times, though. Or were you taking a day off two weeks ago?"

Loki snarled at Tony, saying, "That time would have counted as dying in battle, an event that takes you somewhere a lot nicer than my daughter's realm. Of course the All Father didn't think it fitting for _my _kin to hold a respectable position."

"Loki…" Thor warned, but Hel silenced the both of them.

"Father, do not start this again. You of all people should know that the Asgardians' ideals of life and death as a warrior hold no true importance. Valhalla means nothing to me. Besides, you have not yet introduced me to the rest of your friends.

"I would hardly call them—" Loki began, but was cut off by Thor's boisterous voice.

"Of course! But first, properly introduce yourself. You are among allies; you may remove your cloak."

Hel glanced at Thor, apprehension visible in her stance, but then finally she reached up and lowered her hood before undoing the clasp at her throat. It appeared to be made of bone. As the dark green fabric pooled around her feet, the left side of her body erupted in sparks of magic. When they subsided, the goddess of death in her true form stood there in her true form. Her entire left side was a dusty blue, the flesh withered inwards with bones protruding like the flesh of a cried out corpse, and everywhere it had darker blue lines the resembled a cross between Celtic knots and the lines that had been left on Tony's flesh by the palladium arc reactor, and her hair was coarse and white. However, the right side of her body looked like a normal woman, with ivory skin and raven hair like her father's. Where the two halves met, the two tones of skin and marking swirled together in complex patterns. The only things about her that were the same on both sides were her teeth, which were pointed and black, and her eyes, which were completely white. Her clothing underneath the cloak resembled Thor and Loki's, all dark green and black metal and leather.

For once even Stark was speechless, leaving the room silent for several minutes. Natasha was the first one to recover, striding over to the goddess confidently. "Hi, I'm Natasha Romanov. Welcome to Earth. The angry looking one in the corner over there's Clint, don't mind him. He's just still mad at you dad for the whole mind control thing."

"I said I was sorry…" Loki grumbled, reminding Tony of a spoiled child.

"Yes, my father has spoken of your intelligence, Natasha. It takes skill to trick the trickster. It is an honour. And as for Clint, I may have something to make him forgive a little bit easier," Hel waved in hands in a circular motion, palms facing each other, and a delicate bow appeared in her hands. It appeared to be made of gold, although it was probably the same incredibly durable gold-coloured metal that comprised Loki's helmet. Immediately, Clint hobbled over to the goddess, taking the bow from her mix-matched hands.

It was incredibly light for being made of metal, lighter even than the high-tech carbon fiber one. Its body was covered in elegant Celtic knots, as well as a word in Norse runes. When the light hit it a certain angles, dark green magic danced over its surface like frost forming on a window pane. He drew it experimentally, and an arrow formed of pure green energy formed, startling Clint into releasing the string. The shaft of magic flew straight at Steve, who luckily managed to get his shield up in time for the hit to send him flying across the room and leave a little burn mark right beneath the star.

"Neat…" he said, his eyes running up and down the bow's curves greedily, like any other man would look at a woman.

"Her name is Reka, ancient Norse for 'avenge.' She was made by the dwarves of Nidarvellir. Is she to your liking?" Hel said.

"You bet she is," Clint said, not taking his eyes off the bow, which earned him a smack on the back of the head from Natasha.

While the two assassins glared at each other, Steve walked over to Hel, taking her hand placing a kiss on the back of it, his eyes staying wearily on Loki to her right as he did so. "Stever Rogers, mam. It's a pleasure."

"Likewise."

Finally, Bruce sighed and made his way over, awkwardly shaking the goddess's hand. "Banner. Please don't be as crazy as Loki."

The scientist's method of introduction made Hel laugh, the sound making the hairs on the back of his neck stand at attention.

"I am pleased to meet all of you. I've heard so much, both from my father and from my uncle, Thor. Although, as I understand, there is not much time left for pleasantries before Thanos' arrival."

"Right. So what did you three find out on your mission," Tony said to Steve and the assassins, "And what were do up to all this time? Because it couldn't have taken a whole week just to pick up your daughter from soccer practice. Or did your minivan get stuck in traffic?"

"One day I'm going to put you in your place for your insolence, mortal."

"And won't that be fun." Tony replied, almost by reflex, before he realized how that must have sounded to the rest of the Avengers. He glanced over at Natasha who had raised an eyebrow at him before clearing his throat and herding them all off to the meeting room. There were too many of them now for the kitchen table to be large enough.

Steve took his place at the head of the table, with Tony to his right and Natasha on his left. Clint beside her, with Bruce on the end. Loki sat next to Tony, with Hel sandwiched between the trickster and Thor. Tony looked around the table and laughed, "Look at us all. One big happy family."

Just as Steve was about to begin the meeting, Fury burst into the room with Maria Hill close at his heels.

"Uh oh, daddy's home."

"Save it Stark. When were you planning on telling me Loki's back? And who the hell is that? You're making me glad I had my people hack into your surveillance system, Stark."

"And I suggest you have them unhack it, unless you want me to make Luxor incapable of doing anything more than flying in figure eights again."

"I'd like you see you try. I'm not even here for Loki, though. I'm here to see how the more… tactful half of your team's mission went."

"Well, sir." Natasha began. "We blew up another one of Doom's factories, but this time we managed to download some data from his computer system before the place went up. It should contain the location of all remaining factories, as we all blue prints for his Doombots that I'm sure Stark would love to play with."

"Excellent, I knew I could count on you three. What about you three?"

"Thor tried to make U pick up the hammer and I tried to see how much booze it would take to get Bruce drunk." Tony offered.

"And that helps us defeat Doom and the aliens hurtling towards us through space how, exactly?"

"It does if their plan centers around trying to get Bruce drunk, which I can promise you is never going to happen."

Fury just stared at the genius blankly, clearly trying to prevent himself from leaping down the table and throttling him.

Finally, Loki spoke up. "Actually, Director, I have not been idle. My daughter and I have devised a plan."

"You don't honestly expect us to trust you, do you?" fury asked him.

"What better choice do you have? I believe the saying is 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend.'"

"Fine, then. Let's hear it."

* * *

**AN: **So what do you guys think of my Hel? That's your task in the reviews for this chapter. I opted to use her mythology name instead of Hela, because that's just what I know her better as. Also, I kinda made up my own appearance for her, since that's what they did for a lot of the characters *cough*Loki and Hawkeye *cough* to make them look less blantantly stupid for the movies. I read somewhere that in the comics, without her cloak on, the left half of her body looked like a rotting corpse, and I kept that, but made it appear more like an emaciated Jotun. I think I might have accidentally used Sylvanis from World of Warcraft and Raven from Teen Titans as inspiration. I'm not even sorry. If someone were to draw my Hel, I would be eternally grateful, and you would win the reader of the year award. I'd do it myself, but I suck.

**onenightbutterfly: **You called it!And I know, right? I cant wait until I have an opportunity to have JARVIS scare the crap out of him.

**cara-tanka: **Thank you, darlin'.

**H. Lokidottir: **Why yes he is. I'm glad you like it. :)

**Trekkergurl: **Always love to hear that people love it! Is this soon enough for you?


	7. Office Romance

**AN: **I just accidentally navigated away from the edit page and lost all of my author's notes. Fuck my life. Anyways, this chapter was really fun to write, because it was cute and cuddly for the most part and helped me recover from my feels attack I had when reading chapter 16 of Shades of Green, which is another frostiron fic by Gemsir that you NEED to go read right now if you haven't already, because it's one of the three best fics of the pairing. I'm not even exaggerating at all. Read it. It's here. I have it favourited. But also keep reading this, and reviewing, because reviews give me warm fuzzies and good ideas. And I need good ideas. I don't actually know what's going to happen in any given chapter until it's happening. That's just how I write. Don't judge me.

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Ch. 7: Office Romance

Loki glanced around the long table at the Avengers, waiting to hear his plans with bated breath. Finally, he spoke, "And why should I share my plans with you? So that you may have no further use for me here? So you can attempt to imprison me or send me away to Asgard? I think not."

Beside him, Hel groaned and Stark sighed letting his head fall into his hand. "Look, Reindeer Games, I know they do it differently where you come from, but around here we don't betray people when they help us. Tell us what you've got cookin', and I promise Thor and I won't let Fury do anything with you. Right, Point Break?"

"Aye, brother. The man of iron's words are true. I am honoured to have you fighting at my side once again. I would not have that taken from me just to have to re-atone for your crimes."

"There, you see? Now spit it out. The suspense is killing me."

"How about this: I'll tell you if you stop calling me 'Reindeer Games.'"

"Mmmm… can't make that promise"

"Stark…" Steve warned from the genius's right.

"What? It's just too much fun. You can't ask me to give that up, Cap."

Finally Natasha stood, sick of the men's games, "Can you stop with the sarcasm for five minutes? I don't know if you've noticed but this is serious. Last time we faced these things, it was only one ship, led by that clown you're joking around with. This time it's three, each with the ability to burn the planet to the ground by itself, led some something terrifying enough to have a god running away. This is no time for your games, Stark."

Suddenly there was a flash of dark green, and Hel disappeared from her seat between the two brothers, only to reappear behind Natasha, a knife at her throat.

"Hear this, human. My father is no clown. Thanos, the monster that comes for him and this pathetic world, was once a god himself before he went mad and began craving only the deaths of the most powerful beings he could find. The might of this world is nothing compared to other he's conquered," the goddess hissed into the Russian's ear. Before she had finished speaking, Clint had Reka drawn and pointed at her temple, a magical arrow glimmering on the string. Loki leapt across the table as his scepter appeared in his hand, and he held its point millimeters away from Clint's heart. Natasha reached down to the pistol holstered at her thigh and pointed it at Loki.

"Enough!" Fury screamed, slamming his hands down on the table and standing, glowering at the Avengers. They all jumped at the sound, fortunately not discharging any weapons. The four in the stand-off looked guiltily over at him, like children who'd been caught misbehaving. "All of you, put the weapons away sit your goddamn asses back down."

They all looked at each other apprehensively, before slowly putting their weapons away. Or rather, the two assassins put them away, and Hel and Loki simply made them disappear.

"Good. Now Natasha, apologize for insulting our new friend's daddy."

"Sir, do you really expect me to—"

"Just do it, Agent."

Natasha rolled her eyes, but turned to Loki. "I'm sorry I called you a clown."

"Good. Now Hel, apologize for trying to kill Clint's girlfriend."

"We're not—" the assassins began, but Fury silenced them.

Hel glanced over at Loki, who shrugged as if to tell her to just play along. "Fine. I am sorry for reacting as I did. I have simply lived through centuries of others insulting me and my family, and I refuse to stand for it."

"Great. Now we're all friends again. So can you please tell us what the plan is, Loki? Because I'm not comfortable with just sitting around with my thumb up my ass waiting for the end of the world."

"If it will get me out of this ridiculous meeting, then fine. I shall tell you what I have planned." Loki snarled as he strode back to his side of the table, next to Tony. Despite himself, the inventor's heart lit up as the god got closer. "I mean to unleash an ancient fire giant from the realm of Muspellheim and use him to destroy Thanos's army. Once the battle is done, my daughter will be able to dispatch the creature quite easily."

"Brother, no! You cannot be serious! Surtr cannot be freed, he would destroy Midgard as surely as Thanos! You cannot control him, and you cannot depend on his allegiance, and you certainly cannot depend on Hel's magic being able to dispatch him!"

"Thor, you know all too well why I am the only one who can control him. Muspellheim is Jotunheim's opposite. I will be able to control him with the Casket. And for the same reason, Hel has a better chance of finally slaying him than anyone in all the nine realms."

"It's too dangerous, Loki. If father were to find out—"

"If _your _father found out, it will only be after Surtr is dead, and he will be thanking be for finally ridding the universe of his filth."

"And what if Hel cannot slay him when the battle is done? The fire giant would just s soon burn the Earth as Thanos."

"Uncle, I could kill Odin himself with a single touch if I so choose," Hel interrupted. "One fire giant will pose no challenge for me."

"Let me get this straight," Fury interrupted, "You're planning on fighting these aliens with a loose cannon that you're only hoping you can control?"

"Is that not what you did in sending the Avengers after me?" Loki countered.

"At least I knew that the Avengers wouldn't turn around and destroy the planet after the aliens were gone. It's not the same thing."

"It's the best we've got, director. I want to see these creatures destroyed as badly as you do. I do not like having one so powerful out for my blood."

"Fine. What can we do to help?"

"Director, you can't seriously trust him with the fate of the entire planet." Maria said.

"Thor says he's fine now, and I trust _him_. Plus Tony seems to think it's okay even after he lit his hair on fire and destroyed his lab. Unless Loki had some merit, I'd be willing to bet Tony would have killed him for the hair alone."

"He's not wrong," Tony said, reaching up running his fingers through his hair with a grimace.

"Then it's settled. Is there anything you need from us?" Fury said, turning to Loki.

The god looked up at him, the slightest twinkle of mischief in his eyes. "All I need is for you to make sure nothing important gets in Surtr's way when the time comes."

"Then I guess that's all. Once again, I'm going to have a lot of explaining to do to the council. You guys should really start trying to work more by the book; it would save me a lot of yelling.' With that, Fury and Maria swept out of the meeting room, leaving the Avengers sitting there, most of them confused.

"What did we agree to?" Steve asked.

"I think it involves a demon." Bruce said.

"Well… wonderful. I think I need a drink."

"I second that," Tony said, rising from his seat and patting Loki on the shoulder as he walked passed him. The rest of the Avengers followed, Thor dragging Hel with him, until it was only Loki and Clint left in the meeting room.

"Would you have really taken over my mind again?" Clint asked, not looking at the god.

"To defend my daughter, there are few things I would not do. You know that, Barton. The link our minds shared while you were under my control went both ways. You know everything about me, as I do you."

"That's only because you were as much under the scepter's control as Selvig and I. Would you really risk that happening to you again?"

"As I said: to defend my daughter, there are few things I would not do. You know the fates of my other children. Besides Sleipnir, she is the only one I am ever going to see again. I would never let any harm befall her, even if that meant slaying one of you and having to fight Thanos and Surtr alone."

At this Clint grinned faintly, thinking of Natasha. "Then you and I aren't so different after all." With that he made to leave, but Loki caught his arm.

"Why do you deny it?"

"Deny what?" he asked, yanking his arm away.

"Just now, you denied your relationship with Agent Romanov."

"Because we don't have one. And we probably never will. I might care for her, but all she cares about is her job."

"You're wrong. She interrogated me back on the helicarrier, before you came to my rescue. Do you know what she bartered for? It wasn't her planet, it was you. All she wanted to know was if you were going to be alright."

Barton's eyes widened the faintest glimmer of hope lighting up his normally indifferent face. Slowly, he turned away, bow in hand, hoping with all his heart that the liesmith was telling the truth. Loki followed him out. When the pair arrived back in the Avengers' living room, Steve and Thor were arm wrestling while Bruce, Tony, and Natasha laughed at them from where they were gathered around the bar. Hel was seated on the couch, watching the goings on with the amused fascination of one who had never had the opportunity for such pointless merriment.

When Natasha noticed Clint, she came over with a glass of whiskey. While she was crossing the room, Clint gave Loki a sideways glance, and the god gave him a crooked smile and a wink before walking towards Tony. As he passed Natasha, she gave him the same look he had just given Clint, and suddenly Loki remembered what she had caught him and the inventor doing, a knot forming in his stomach.

When she arrived in front of Barton, she pressed the glass into his hand, and when he took it he let his fingers linger over hers. The spy noticed, and looked up at him, but their moment was interrupted by a roar when Steve finally won the arm wrestling competition.

"You would never be able to best be in combat," the god boomed, his Asgardian pride hurt that he lost to the super soldier.

"You wanna bet?" Steve asked, grinning at him. Without a word, the pair charged off to the sparring room.

"Don't use the hammer!" Tony shouted after them. "The hole in the wall from last time still hasn't been patched, and the lightning screws with JARVIS!"

"Is this an everyday thing with those two?" Loki asked from where he stood beside him with his elbows on the bar, mirroring Tony's position.

"Pretty much."

"Be glad there's not five of them, then. That is exactly how Thor behaved back home with Sif and the Warriors Three. They never let me join in. Said I'd cheat and use magic."

At this Tony snorted, choking on his scotch and half coughing, half laughing.

"What have I said that is so funny?"

"They didn't let you join in their reindeer games," he barely managed to say between laughs.

"I thought I told you to drop that ridiculous nickname."

"It's a song," Bruce offered from the other side of the still laughing genius. "For kids. About a baby reindeer who's different from the other baby reindeer, and they won't let him play with them, but then he saves Christmas and everyone loves him after that."

"So Stark thinks that my centuries-long life being a living hell is funny because of some infantile song that he named me after?"

"Umm… yea," Banner agreed, realizing how bad it sounded when Loki put it that way. Loki sighed and glared at Stark, who was red in the face from laughing but had finally managed to stop. He looked up at Loki with an innocent grin, hoping he wouldn't throw him across the room again.

"I'm fighting the urge to light your beard on fire this time."

"How about you don't?"

"But it would be so funny, Stark."

"My face isn't exactly as fire-proof as yours. And I like my face. I'm very attached to my face. I don't it to be horribly scared."

"I guess you're right, Stark. It would be a pity to ruin it." Loki said before teleporting across the room to sit on the couch next to Hel before Tony could respond.

"Did he just hit on you?" Bruce asked, confusion evident in his voice.

"I have no idea." Tony was staring over at the back of Loki's head as he spoke to his daughter, pouring himself another glass of scotch and draining it, deep in thought and not wanting to be.

After a moment Bruce nudged his arm and pointed outside to where Clint and Natasha had wandered off to talk. They were sitting on the edge of Tony's landing pad, and Natasha had thrown her arms around Clint's neck. As they watched, Clint pulled the assassin off a couple inches and kissed her.

"Looks like we've got some office romance." Bruce said.

"Sure took them long enough," Tony laughed.

Loki overheard their conversation and looked out the window, smiling to himself at what he saw.

'Well, I think I'm gonna turn in. It's been a long day of doing absolutely nothing useful," Bruce sighed as he slid past his science buddy and headed for his room.

"That reminds me," Tony said, raising his voice so it would carry to the two Asgardians on the couch, "Hel, you don't have a room yet. And I imagine Loki doesn't want to sleep in the holding cell downstairs anymore."

When they agreed, Tony motioned for them to follow after refilling his drink again. "Loki, you can take the one across from me," Tony said, opening the door as he walked past. "And the lady can sleep right next door. This place is becoming a freakin' hotel. I should start charging rent. You two can crash whenever you want, I'm going down to the lab. Ask JARVIS if you need anything."

As he was walking away, Loki shouted after him, "Stark, may I come with you? Barton wasn't the only one we got a gift for."

"Oh? Now I'm interested."

Taking that as an ok, Loki closed the distance between himself and Tony and grabbed his upper arm, teleporting them both down to the lab.

"Warn me next time you do that," The inventor said, slightly dizzy from the teleportation.

His computer dinged, registering the magic usage. When Tony glanced at it, he saw several readouts from every time Loki or Hel had used magic since they arrived. "That is going to get really annoying. JARVIS, make it stop beeping and make a program that automatically analyzes the magic for the element we detected. Also, see if there's a difference between Loki and his daughter's magic."

"Right away, sir."

"So what did you want to give me? Is it nice? I hope it's nice. If you got me a gag gift I'm gonna be really let down. Inconsolable."

Loki smirked at the inventor, then waved his hands and a huge mound of metal ingots appeared in the lab. _'Where my cars used to be.' _Tony though, feeling a pang in his heart for his beloved machines. _'Someday Loki's replacing those.' _

"Is that gold?" Tony asked, approaching the stack and plucking one of the ingots off it. It was incredibly light, and a slightly lighter shade than gold. Each bar had very tiny, complex Celtic knots running all over it, and Tony wondered why they would have gone to the trouble of engraving something that complicated on something that would just be melted down anyway.

"No, far better than gold. It's the same basic alloy used in Clint's new bow, without the element that makes it flexible. It's dwarven metal, about a hundred times more durable than diamonds. You're looking at about a quarter ton of the stuff, but because of how light it is, that's quite a lot. You have no idea how many strings I had to pull to get this much. The dwarves hate it leaving Nidarvellir unforged."

"And you're giving it to me because…?"

"I thought that would be obvious. So that you can make a new suit out of it."

"Is this about when my old one got ripped open like a tin can by those Doombots and you nearly killed yourself trying to heal me?" Tony asked bluntly.

"Yes. It would be quite tedious if I had to go around draining my body entirely of magic every single time you decide to get yourself half-killed."

"Wow… that's actually somewhat sweet. Thanks…" Tony said, unsure of what to do. First his comment upstairs, now this? What happened to 'alcohol induced mistake'? However, true to himself, his curiosity about the metal far outweighed that which he had for the god's behavior.

He hurriedly brought the ingot in his hand over to some machinery – which Loki could have sworn he'd destroyed – and started JARVIS running all kinds of tests. After a few minutes, JARVIS told him what he wanted to hear, and he immediately started emptying the smelter beneath their feet that lead to the machine that fabricated his suits of the gold-titanium alloy he previously used. When the AI announced that it was empty, Tony made as if to start hauling the bars into the chute my hand, but Loki waved his hand and they all teleported into it.

"I could get used to having you around down here." Tony said to the god before addressing his AI. "JARVIS, whip me us a Mark VIII suit with cuffs programmed for it, and start running diagnostics for predicted top speed, weight, agility, yada yada yada. And keep the red paint."

"Already doing so, sir. Predicted fabrication time: six hours."

Tony laughed with glee, bouncing over to Loki and actually _hugging _him. "Thanks, Santa! It's exactly what I wanted!"

"Had I known your reaction to being given a large heap of metal was going to be this entertaining, I would have done it ages ago." Loki said, resisting the urge to wrap his arms around the mortal as he stared down at him.

"It's fascinating, Loki! You just gave me large quantities of an alien element that doesn't exist anywhere on Earth. That makes three new elements I've discovered, two of which were through you," the inventor said excitedly, stepping a couple paces back from the god.

Loki smiled down at him in amusement before asking, "What was the other one I aided in the discovery of?"

It doesn't have a name yet. Bruce and I have just been calling it 'Loki Stuff.' It's created when you use magic. Highly radioactive, but not harmful at all, and its half-life is extremely short."

Loki's smile widened just the tiniest bit. "You know, you're kinda cute when you're being a geek," he said as he slowly closed the gap between them again.

"Who taught you the word 'geek'?"

"Barton, in reference to Doctor Selvig three years ago." Loki was now directly in front of Tony with his hands on his waist, one eyebrow quirked up in amusement at how hard the human was trying to ignore it.

"Typical. You know, he once called Bruce and me—" Tony's response was cut short by Loki's lips crashing into his own. The trickster took full advantage of the fact that Tony's mouth had been open to speak and plunged his tongue inside, pulling the human closer as he did so.

They remained like this for a few moments before Loki broke the kiss, planting a final peck on Tony's lips before pulling his head back up. "You were saying?"

"I don't remember," Tony replied, breathless.

Loki smirked, then asked in a slightly husky voice, "You weren't planning on getting any sleep tonight, were you?"

"No."

"Good," Loki then leaned down and whispered in Tony's ear, "Hold your breath," before they both disappeared in a crackle of green flames.

* * *

**AN: **Ehehehehe, you don't get to know what happens until I update again! Loki'd! About the loki being under the scepter's control too thing: In Thor his eyes are green, but in Avengers they're blue except for two instances, when he fought Thor on top of Stark Tower and had that temporary moment of clarity before stabbing him in the gut, and then later when the Hulk made him one with Tony's floor. The rest of the time, they were blue, just like Selvig and Clint. They weren't as intense because they were probably just Tom Hiddleston's actual eyes instead of contacts, but they were still blue. This leads me to believe that canonically (that's a word now) he was somewhat under the scepter's - and my proxy Thanos's - control for the whole movie. Replies now.

**cara-tanaka: **As you always are. ;P

**Trekkergurl: **I hope it will be.

**sv4me: **That's the longest review I've ever gotten, and it was quite flattering. Flattering enough for me to grant your wish, because I loved the idea of Loki playing assassin matchmaker. Thank you so much for saying I write them well, that's something I worry about constantly while writing. Have an imaginary cookie.

**ladyofstayne: **Yay not waiting long?

**Sha-Lin: **... *blink blink* Do I see the words 'me gusta'? ... To google translate because I took Latin in high school instead of Spanish because I'm a dork! Ah, yes, thank you so very much. Again, I'm very pleased to hear my characters aren't OOC, and that my plot line is interesting. Because sometimes I worry. XD


	8. Pancakes

**AN: **Yea, I suck. I didn't update for **_way_** too long. I have no excuses, I just suck. Here's hoping smut makes up for it.

* * *

Ch. 8: Pancakes

Tony and Loki reappeared in the genius's bedroom upstairs, the trickster immediately pinning him against the wall by the door and crashing their lips back together. Tony tried to peel the god off of himself, his entire brain screaming that this was a horrible idea. Loki merely pressed his torso harder against Tony's so that he couldn't wriggle free while he used his hands to pin the genius's own above his head. He then pulled away as far as his long limbs would allow while still keeping Tony's hands against the wall. The smaller man struggled at first, but gave up quickly, knowing the god was far too strong for him to get free.

"Why are you putting up such a fight, Stark? Last time I checked you wanted this," Loki purred, his silver tongue making his every word sound sexy as hell.

"And last time _I _checked, _you_ didn't. So what changed?" Tony said, managing to clear his head slightly of the god's advances.

Loki grimaced, looking away from the inventor. "I missed you…" he whispered finally, so quietly that Tony could barely hear him.

"I'm sorry, I must be hearing things, I thought you just said that you missed me, but that can't be right, because you hate me and like breaking my stuff."

"Do you really want to have this conversation now, Stark? Because I…" The god lowered his head to Tony's ear, running his tongue along its edge before whispering in a husky voice, "…don't want to do _any _talking." With that, Loki took the mortal's ear in between his teeth and nibbled on it slowly, before making his way down his neck, biting and licking and sucking all the way down to his collar bone.

Tony moaned lightly despite himself, and tilted his head to the other side to give Loki better access. Loki grinned wickedly against his flesh before biting down hard on the spot where his neck met his collar bone. The trickster had hit just the right spot, making Tony gasp and writhe against his taller frame.

When Tony started trying to work his hands free again, Loki hissed, "Are you going to behave?" When the inventor nodded his agreement, Loki released his wrists, taking the opportunity to yank his t-shirt off over his head before letting both his arms slide down his toned chest to rest on his hips. Tony buried one of his now-free hands in Loki's hair, dragging his head back down and kissing him hard. Loki let him, knowing the genius was used to being in control. Might as well let him have it for a bit.

Tony pulled the god's long black hair while he pulling his silver tongue into his own mouth, sliding his teeth across it before nibbling on Loki's bottom lip, eliciting a low moan from the god. His other hand roamed across Loki's body, still clad in metal armour and that black leather duster. He slid his hand under the leather at Loki's shoulders, pushing the bulky leather off of his slender frame. The coat slid most of the way off, catching where the thick leather strap that went from the one metal pauldron on Loki's right shoulder to his hip stopped it.

Loki chuckled into the kiss and pulled back slightly, "Having difficulties, are we?"

"It is not my fault that you Asgardians have a leather fetish, ok?"

Loki laughed, before disappearing in a crackle of green flames, only to reappear a few feet away on Tony's bed, spread out on his back. "Give it your best shot."

"Is the teleporting really necessary?" Tony asked, obediently striding across the room to the edge of his bed, crawling across it until he was right over Loki on all fours, his eyes raking over the mess of armour metal and buckles. "Is it even possible to remove this without magic?"

"Find out," the god answered, his arms snaking up to wrap around Tony's bare shoulders, dragging him down for a kiss. _'Of course he has to make this as difficult as possible.' _He thought as he blindly fumbled along the god's body, undoing every buckle he could find. He was making slow progress, and Loki was growing impatient. The god's lips grew more fervent and demanding by the second, his nails dragging along Stark's back.

Finally, Loki flipped them over, loose buckles rattling as he moved. The motion caused their hard lengths to rub against each other, both of them moaning deeply. "Time's up," the trickster growled, waving his hand and making his clothing disappear, as well as the remainder of Stark's. Loki kissed Tony again, this time more tender than rough, before working his way down his neck and chest, pausing when he reached the arc reactor. Tony froze while the god traced its perfectly smooth edge with one long, delicate finger, then spiraled out to trace what few scars remained after Loki had healed him two weeks ago.

Finally Tony couldn't take it anymore and caught Loki's wrist. The god looked up, the reactor's blue light casting deep shadows on his face. Tony was staring down at him, fear clear in his eyes. Loki actually looked somewhat guilty before stretching up and kissing the genius's lips. He pulled away after a moment and said, "Sorry. I should have realized you'd be defensive about… that."

Tony looked surprised that the god even understood, let alone bothered to apologize. Silently, he released the other man's wrist and leaned up to nibble on his long neck. Loki's head immediately lolled back as he brought his hands up, one resting on Tony's broad shoulder and the other tangling in his short hair.

"Harder," he groaned, grinding his hips down into Tony's.

The inventor gasped, feeling a wave of heat flood through his abdomen down to his groin before moving to the other side of the god's throat and biting down hard, letting Loki's flesh slowly slip back out of his teeth before licking the spot, causing the god to moan and writhe on top of him. Tony moved down his chest, trailing his tongue around one of Loki's nipples before taking it in his mouth, sucking and biting gently. Loki hissed and raked his nails all the way down Tony's chest before running one teasing finger up the inventor's throbbing manhood. He dragged his thumb along his slit, already beginning to weep precum. Tony gasped, involuntarily bucking his hips upwards towards Loki's hand.

The god grinned and began kissing and biting his way down the center of Tony's chest, following the red lines left by his nails, arcing around the reactor. When he got down to the genius's hips, he ran tongue along the slightly protruding bones and up his thick shaft, swirling his silver tongue around the head before taking all of Tony in his mouth, straight down to the base. Loki started bobbing his head up and down at a maddeningly slow pace, and it took everything Tony had to not start ramming himself down the god's throat.

Finally, Loki started picking up the pace, alternating between quickly bobbing up and down and sucking on him hard all the way to the tip before swirling his tongue around Tony's head and swallowing him back down. The inventor threw his head back into the cushions, moaning loudly. He didn't know how much more of this he could take. Loki kept going faster and faster, bringing Tony right to the brink, before sliding him all the way out of his mouth, teasingly blowing the tip when Tony whimpered.

"Can't let you have all the fun, now can we?" the god hissed into Tony's ear, stretching over to reach his night stand and pulling a bottle of lube out of the top drawer.

"How did you know that was there?" he panted, watching the god with eyes glazed over with desire.

"Lucky guess." Loki smirked down at Tony, opening the bottle and squirting some into the shorter man's own hand, guiding it to Loki's throbbing length. Tony obediently coated it in the slick substance, too far gone to care that this meant he'd be catching. While he did so, Loki squirted some onto his own fingers, readying Tony.

Finally neither of them could take it any longer, and Loki flipped the mortal over roughly and began slowly pushing into him, one hand gripping his hips and the other in his hair. Once he was all the way in, he bent over Tony and nibbled at the back of his neck, giving him time to adjust. Tony had been with other men before, years ago, but had never been on the receiving end of things. _'What were you expecting to happen? A centuries old psychopathic god was going to let you dominate him?'_ he told himself. Then Loki started to move, and he lost the ability to think about anything but the intense pleasure of feeling the god inside him.

Loki slammed into him roughly again and again, rocking his hips just right so that he hit Tony's prostate every time. They were both quickly reduced to a sweaty, panting mess, huffing and moaning loudly with each powerful thrust of Loki's hips.

"Ahh! Loki… I don't think I can nngh… take this much longer." Tony managed to gasp between thrusts, his words only serving to make the god go even faster. As he felt himself nearing the edge as well, Loki released his grip on Tony's hair and reaching around to grasp his length, pumping in time with is thrusts.

After just a few seconds of this Tony moaned loudly, coming in the god's hand and his walls contracting around him, causing the god to lose control as well.

"Tony!" he cried, his thrusts became erratic and desperate before he finally came inside him.

Both their knees quivered and they collapsed onto Tony's mattress, Loki sliding out of him.

'_He called me Tony,'_ the inventor thought sleepily before they both nodded off, Loki teleporting the blanket on top of them rather than bothering to move.

"Good morning. The time is 8:45 AM, the temperature outside is 75 degrees, predicted high for the day 87 degrees. The rest of the team is having breakfast, along with the daughter of the Norse god you have draped over you."

Tony groaned sleepily, cursing the AI aloud before cracking his eyes open. At some point during the night, Tony had rolled over onto his back, and Loki was still asleep, lying half on top of him. The genius stared down at him, wondering what the hell happened last night. His thoughts were interrupted when the god began to stir and opened his eyes, the emerald orbs panning around the room before rolling up to lock with Tony's.

"I thought it was considered rude on Midgard to watch people sleep," Loki said before yawning and stretching like a cat.  
"I didn't exactly have anything else to do with you on top of me."

"You weren't complaining last night," the god purred into his ear, sending chills down his spine before he disappeared in a crackle of green. For a moment Tony thought he had disappeared before he heard the sound of water running in his bathroom. He decided not to wonder why he felt relieved that he hadn't left completely. He finally dragged himself out of bed and looked around on the floor for his pants.

"Umm… Loki… where the hell did you magic my clothes to? That was my favourite pair of jeans."

He heard a cackle from his bathroom and a crackle above his head. He looked up, and his jeans fell on his face.

"Smartass," he yelled into the other room, pulling them on after a fresh pair of boxers from his dresser. He was about to pull a t-shirt over his head when he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. He sighed and stomped into the bathroom, where Loki stood wearing just his black leather trousers slung low on his hips, poking each mark that Tony had left on his neck as green flames danced over them, healing the bruises.

Tony ignored how sexy Loki looked stripped to the waist with his normally well-kempt hair all a mess standing in his bathroom, and said, "You better leave some magic for me, you freakin' vampire."

The trickster glanced at him in the mirror, a crooked grin spreading across his face. Tony's chest, neck, and back were covered in hickeys and scratches, some of which had even drawn blood.

"And why, should I, Stark? Maybe it would be more fun for me to leave you marked," the god purred.

"Oh really? Well then I guess you wouldn't mind being the one that has to explain them to your brother."

Loki grimaced, before giving in and striding over to Tony before winding one arm around his waist and pulling him into a tender kiss, green flames blossoming from where their lips met. They danced across Tony's body, flaring brightly over the wounds Loki had left, until they were all healed. Loki pulled back and whispered, "Happy now?"

"Maybe a little too happy," Tony growled, trying to drag the god's head back down to his, but Loki stopped him.

"No, no, Stark. I plan on having breakfast before you ravish me again.

"Fine," Stark groaned before slipping his T-shirt over his head and running his fingers through his hair, ruffling it back into place. "Make sure to teleport to your room instead of just walking out of my room. Don't want people to talk, no do we?"

Loki grumbled his agreement, his attention glued to his image in the mirror, trying to make himself presentable. Tony rolled his eyes at the god, _'Fuckin' princess.' _Before leaving, making a bee-line for the coffee that Bruce had undoubtedly been the one to put on.

Glancing around the kitchen, he saw Thor giving a tired Clint an animated account of last night's sparring match with Steve, while the super solider dutifully cooked breakfast and corrected Thor here and there when the thunder god over exaggerated his abilities. Bruce was seated silently at the breakfast counter, staring into his coffee, and Natasha was sitting next to him, having a guarded conversation with Hel, every so often glancing over at Barton. Sometimes she caught the archer looking back.

They all looked up when Tony entered the room, but returned immediately to what they were doing. Despite the fact that they clearly knew nothing of last night's events, Tony still felt guilty around his friends, as if they somehow knew.

He was making himself so paranoid that he jumped when Thor addressed him sloshing coffee onto the floor.

"Have you seen my brother, Man of Iron? It is unusual for him to sleep so late."

"No, why would I have?" the inventor croaked.

"He is probably exhausted from our journey. In our search for answer we were forced to spend the night in a few of the most uncomfortable realms in all the world tree," Hel said.

Tony was glad for the save, now even more paranoid because of his quick answer. Fortunately, that's when Loki rounded the corner. The god of mischief had stolen another of Tony's green button up shirts, and he couldn't help but be turned on by the trickster looked in the shiny silk and tight black leather leggings. He'd taken the extra time to brush and slick back his ebony hair, now going all the way down to just between his shoulder blades.

This time, the Avengers paused for a longer amount of time, staring at Loki as he crossed the room. They were more comfortable with Hel in her true form in the room than with Loki. She may be terrifying to look at, but at least she hasn't tried to kill them all and take over their planet. Yet.

Loki let his eyes slowly slide across the room, finally resting on Steve. "What are those, Rogers?" the god asked, causing the soldier to jump, not expecting to be addressed directly by their ex-nemesis.

"Pancakes," Steve sputtered after a moment, "Thor insisted I make them for Hel. Apparently because Jane gave them to him on his first morning on Midgard he's decided they're some kind of ceremonial food of welcoming."

"Not at all, Steven," Thor bellowed. Now it was Loki's turn to jump when his elder brother strode over and clapped him on the shoulder. The trickster heard Tony snort, trying to stifle a laugh and shot him a glare, his cheeks darkening slightly despite himself.

"What? So I don't get welcomed to Midgard with ridiculous foods?" Loki said, only mostly in jest.

"You were too busy blowing stuff up for Steve to feed you, if I recall. Which you're going to regret once you take a bite of those things," Bruce said.

The scientist wasn't kidding, either. It was a known fact that Steve was the best cook on the team due to the fact that he'd always loved helping his mother in the kitchen back in his own time. His pancakes, they had discovered, were incredible. The super soldier added shreds of apple, cinnamon, and nutmeg to the things, and it was better than anything the rest of the team had ever tasted.

Loki simply wrinkled his nose at Banner and went over to his daughter, making Natasha a bit uncomfortable to have the god seemingly looming over her. "Did you sleep well, my winter flower?" he asked her, placing his hands on her shoulders as she looked up at him, a tenderness in his voice that surprised everyone present, including Thor.

Tony caught himself wishing the trickster would speak to him that way and mentally cursed himself for last night. He knew he had a track record from their previous encounters of getting too wrapped up in the god; he should have known he wouldn't be able to think of as one of his many one-night-stands.

"Fine, father. And I hardly think this is the place for such nicknames," the goddess responded, glancing around at the team in embarrassment.

"Don't worry about it, Riding Hood. We love nicknames here. Right, Reindeer Games?" Tony interjected, letting himself risk a wink at Loki as he sipped his coffee.

The god's eye twitched visibly, and he growled, "I suppose there's no point in asking you not to call me that as you'll just ignore me again, Stark?"

"Now you're getting' it," the inventor smiled.

Before Loki had a chance to kill him, Steve announced that breakfast was ready and the Avengers plus two all shuffled over to the breakfast table at varying paces. With two extra faces at the table, there was a second or two of confusion as they silently rearranged where each of them sat at the table, as Loki had occupied the space where Bruce usually sat next to Tony, and Hel had taken Thor's usual spot next to that. Steve set a tower of pancakes and a massive dish of scrambled eggs in the center of the table and the team pounced.

Between three every active humans, a super soldier, a gamma mutant, and three gods, the massive amount of food disappeared onto their plates rapidly, each of them taking no less than five pancakes each. Loki and Hel glanced around the table as the Avengers covered their pancakes in various toppings, following their lead with slight apprehension. When the first bite touched their tongues, both their faces lit up and everyone broke into laughter.

Thor had told them they didn't have many sweets on Asgard, and there had to have been even less on Niffleheim. Watching the trickster react this way to something each of them had taken for granted since childhood actually managed to warm them to him slightly, starting the long road to the Avengers accepting and perhaps even trusting him.

Once breakfast was finished, Tony Bruce, Loki, and Hel headed down to the lab to work on suppressing the Chitauri's energy weapons. After several hours of coming up with nothing on their own, Tony decided to have JARVIS get Fury to send them some of the Chitauri weapons and transport that SHIELD had salvaged after the battle years ago. The group decided to turn their attention to studying magic, and Thor even came down with Mjolnir to allow Tony to take readings off of it.

While he punched some numbers into one of his computers Tony chuckled to himself at how odd he should have found it to have not one but _three _gods standing around in his laboratory. Somehow, having them around felt completely normal. Tony had even grown completely accustomed to Hel's bizarre appearance after the few short hours he'd known her.

'_That's probably not a normal reaction to having a half-corpse goddess of death sleeping across the hall while you bang her dad,' _that annoyingly sane part of Tony's brain chided him.

He'd worry about that later; right now all he had time for was his curiosity. Curiosity about their magic, how it was different in each of the three gods, how it seemed bizarrely similar to the element he created to power his arc reactor, and most importantly how any of this was going to matter when they had three Chitauri motherships overhead and an angry fire giant loose on their planet.

By mid-afternoon, the small team of scientists and magicians had made more than a few astounding discoveries. Both Hel and Mjolnir's magic emitted the same 'Loki stuff' as the trickster's, and Mjolnir seemed to be made of the same metal that Loki had brought him from Nidarvellir. However, they discovered that Hel and Loki gave off an additional third element, not only when they performed magic but by simply existing. Tony had missed it before because while Loki gave it off constantly, Hel only did while wearing the cloak that made her appear to be completely Aesir.

After much questioning and slight begging from Tony, Loki begrudgingly admitted that this was because it was only generated by shapeshifting magic.

Tony knew that Loki was actually a frost giant from Thor, but he'd never put two and two together that the form he was used to seeing Loki in might not be his real body. However, now that the thought had crossed his mind, it was all he could think about, his curiosity getting the best of him.

Despite even more begging from Stark, the trickster refused to show his true form. Recognizing the strength of his resolve, Tony dropped the matter, surprising both Bruce and Thor. He announced tiredly that that was enough science for one day and ushered everyone but Loki into the elevator.

"Why are you keeping me down here, Stark?" the god asked, watching as Tony brought up projections of diagnostic readouts from his brand new suit.

Tony ignored the way something inside him crumpled when he realized the god had reverted back to addressing him by his surname and plastered a fake grin across his face. "Don't you want to be around when I found out how your little present works out?"

The genius then pressed the button that lifted the suit JARVIS had spent the night fabricating from the floor, gasping when it came into full view.

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**AN: **Ahh, I love the smell of a cliffhanger in the wee-hours of the morning. what did you guys think of my sex scene? I was very paranoid about it. I showed it to one of my IRL friends and she said it was the best sex scene she'd ever read, but I don't believe her... please tell me your thoughts, as I've never actually written one before, only thought them out in my head. The rest of this chapter just feels awkward to me, and that's why it took so long. When I get writer's block I get unsure of myself, and when I get unsure of myself my writing gets crappy, and when my writing gets crappy I get paranoid. It's not dignified. Reviews help my paranoia, and I PROMISE the next chapter will be out in a reasonable amount of time!

**BillyFriday-Batsy: **I'm glad you enjoy it, and I'm sorry you had to wait so long. I feel like the worst person ever.

**cara-tanaka: **about that whole waiting thing...

**Peep: **hurr hurr, happy to hear it.

**sv4me: **That's what happens when you watch a movie _eight _times, each time drooling over Tom Hiddleston's face.

**UntoldStories97: **I am so glad you like my Hel! I've always loved Hel to death, and thought that sense everyone else got a big-screen revamp out of their quite frankly silly retro looks, she should get one, too. I am happy to know that I have elicited feels. Gesundheit *hands a tissue*

**Nemesis Moon: **awww... you win the sweetest person ever award! I hope this chapter doesn't disappoint!

**Byvenic: **soooorry! I just really love making cliffhangers out of the most random shit possible. Guess I'm Steven Moffat's apprentice. Hope the smut made up for it. ;P


	9. We Have a God of Mischief

**AN:**Again, sorry this chapter took so long to upload. My dad's been mad at me since Wednesday, and when he's mad at me I don't get internet. I've had all this written since Thursday, but I couldn't upload it. Needless to say, I was rather emotional when I wrote this chapter, and I think it probably shows. Oh well though, cuz I'm actually really proud of this one. I hope you like it as much as I do, tell me what you think!

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Ch. 9: We Have a God of Mischief

Tony stared in awe at his new suit while Loki simply stared at him, a smirk playing across his face.

"What… happened?" Tony finally asked, turning to the grinning god.

"It's a property of that particular kind of metal. No matter how it's forged, once it cools it immediately develops those patterns. No two are alike, and throughout the item's life they shift and change. They say that the dwarves can read them; that they tell the story of the weapon or armour and its owner's time together."

"That's incredible," Tony whispered reverently, reaching out to his new suit and tracing the complicated lines, following their every swirl and twist. Right now, they mainly stayed on the edges of each armour plate, as if the markings were just empty frames. Tony itched to change that.

"JARVIS, scan the suit and make a 3D map of the markings. Do this every time I park it so I can track how they change. Save each one in a new folder in the Mark VIII file. Keep track of the date and time that you log them."

"Straight away, sir."

After a moment's thought, Stark continued, "Do we have the locations of Doom's remaining factories that Natasha stole on her last mission in the database, JARVIS?"

"Of course, sir."

"Upload the floor plan and location of the closest one to the new suit's HUD," he said, a calculating smile lighting up his face as he turned to Loki. "Feel like kicking some ass, Reindeer Games?"

"Without the rest of your little team?"

"Why not? JARVIS will tell them if we get in any real trouble."

"Doom will have an army of those robots waiting for our next attack at each of his facilities."

"And we have a god of mischief."

Loki grinned slightly at Tony's words, seeing the parallel to their conversation three years ago when it was he who had led an army against the Avengers.

"So what do you say? Wanna make some?" Tony asked, snapping Loki out of his musings.

"Mischief?"

Tony nodded, already slipping his new suits activation cuffs over his wrists.

Loki chuckled darkly, and his entire body began to shine with streaked golden light as the armour he'd worn in Stuttgart and in their final battle materialized around him. At the same time, the Mark VIII suit leapt off the platform it stood on and formed around Tony's body, science perfectly echoing sorcery.

Loki stepped towards the genius and grabbed his head, teleporting them both to the location JARVIS had told them was Doctor Doom's nearest base. Tony chose to ignore that even through the metal suit, Loki's touch made his stomach do backflips.

Two hours later, Thor came down to Tony's lab. "Anthony, brother! It is time for dinner!" He bellowed to the empty room. Once he realized they were not there he awkwardly addressed the AI, "Umm… JARVIS? It's Thor… where have your creator and my brother gone?"

"They went to test Mr. Stark's new suit on one of Doom's facilities. I assure you, they are alright. I have been monitoring Mr. Stark's vitals closely, and have orders to alert you should it appear they need assistance."

JARVIS's reassurance wasn't good enough for Thor, however, as he immediately stepped back into the elevator and paced anxiously as it rose slowly back to the penthouse levels. When the elevator doors finally dinged open, he rushed out into where the other four Avengers and Hel were all laughing and talking together amiably, the team finally warming up to the goddess.

"Friends! My brother and Anthony have gone off on their own to fight Doctor Doom! JARVIS assures me they are alright, but I fear for them. We must ensure their safety!"

Without another word, the team sprung to their feet and ran off to their respective rooms to suit up, meeting back up on the roof ten short minutes later. They all piled into one of the waiting quinjets, Thor opting to stay with Hel on her first ride in one of the things.

Tony and Loki stood in the center of a large room in Doom's facility. By a stroke of pure luck, the facility Tony had chosen at random had been the one Doom was hiding in. The insane genius was seated in his mechanical chair as usual, Loki standing behind him with a knife at his throat and a hand on his temple, glowing a bright green. The trickster was trying to extract information from the villain's mind while Tony kept a close eye on them, watching every twitch of Doom's fingers.

Suddenly, Thor smashed through the ceiling, causing metal and plaster to rain down on them. This was enough to wrench Loki's attention away from keeping Doom suppressed just long enough for him to flip a switch on his chair and fly out of the hole Thor had just created.

"Look what you did!" Tony screamed at the god of thunder, snapping his visor shut and launching after Doctor Doom. Despite his anger that Thor had let their enemy escape, this was exactly what Tony had been waiting for. A chase. The new suit had performed remarkably in battle, the metal's magical nature granting him more agility and power than he had thought possible, but this is was where its true superiority could shine.

Because it was as light as silk, he was able to reach incredible speeds, closing the gap between himself and Doom in seconds, despite his head start. The villain tried to fire rockets at Tony, but he dodged them with barely a thought, the metal around him seeming to anticipate his movements. A few seconds later he grabbed a hold of Doom's chair, ripping out the motherboard. The contraption's circuits immediately died, and he snatched Doom out of it as it fell to the ground.

He flew back to the factory, dropping Doom unceremoniously through the hole Thor had made – it went through six floors straight to the roof – before flying back down it himself. The villain landed hard right in front of Clint's feet, his cape draping comically over his head. The assassin, with Steve's help, dragged the stunned villain away from the opening and cuffed him. Moments later, Tony landed and slid his visor open, assessing the situation. The whole team was staring at Thor and Loki, who were in the middle of a screaming match.

"You only did this because you think I can't fight!" the god of mischief screeched at his big brother. "You've always thought I can't fight! Protecting me in battle, not letting me go anywhere dangerous alone, only letting me spar with Sif out of fear that anyone else would injure me." he spat the name of the Asgardian woman, hatred dripping from his silver tongue.

"I have only ever done those things out of love, to protect you! I never thought you cannot fight, you are just far better at doing so from afar with your magic than in real combat. I was just as worried for Anthony as—"

Loki interrupted Thor, hissing dangerously, "Perhaps if you ever would have allowed me to fight, then you would see why your fears are misguided."

When Loki's hands sparked with green and Thor shifted his grip on Mjolnir, Tony wouldn't just watch any longer. Without a thought, he strode forward and shoved his way between the two brothers. His palms were up and charged, although he did not intend to fire on either of them.

"This is not the place for this, guys. We still have Doom to worry about." Tony said, trying to calm the pair of them down. They seemed to relax, Loki meeting Tony's eyes with a thankful look.

Then the clank of metal erupted from one of the shadowy corners of the room and a Doombot launched at the group, straight for Natasha. It was missing an arm thanks to Loki, but still posed a threat. However, it didn't have a chance to do any damage. Hel leapt at the robot, dodging its one-armed attack with more grace than even the assassin it was charging for before placing her withered left hand on its shoulder. The robot immediately lurched to a stop, its circuits dying. Before long, the cloth cape rotted as the metal began to tarnish and rust away. The whole thing was reduced to a pile of dust in seconds.

As Hel brushed the rust off of her hand, team gaped at her. They hadn't dreamed that the tiny woman could be so powerful, but they supposed they should have expected it, her being the goddess of death and Loki's daughter.

Loki spoke first, "Tony is right, we have to get Victor back to the Tower." Tony tried to hide his smile at the god calling his Tony again even as he was teleported back to the tower with Clint by the trickster, Hel following suit with Steve and Doctor Doom. The rest of the team could take the quinjet back.

The sorcerers landed the group in Tony's lab, outside of the same cell they had stuck Loki in. To Tony, that felt like years ago, even though it had only been a few weeks. They quickly took away all of his gadgets and locked him inside, being a lot less paranoid with a prisoner that couldn't do magic.

"JARVIS, if this one escapes how about you tell me instead of teaching him how to access the computers, yea?" Tony said humorously, smiling at Loki as he spoke. The group then moved to the elevator to return to the penthouse level, only having to wait a few minutes before the rest of the team arrived in the quinjet.

When they were all in normal clothes again, Tony poured himself a drink and said, "I nominate not me to tell Fury we got him."

"Why don't you want to make the call? This would probably be the only conversation you have with the guy when he's not tearing you a new one." Bruce said from where he and Steve were attempting to reheat their dinner.

"You forget that we went without permission, Banner," Loki pointed out, surprising even himself by contributing to the conversation, "I doubt he would take kindly to that."

"I'll do it," Natasha sighed, "You all are a bunch of babies. I don't even understand why it matters who initiates the call; JARVIS will have him on speaker anyway."

"It's the thought that counts." Tony grumbled around his scotch glass as the phone rang.

"You better have a damn good reason to be calling me at this hour," Fury's voice scolded them from the speakers overhead.

"Sir, we just wanted to let you know that we've captured Victor Von Doom," Natasha said, glaring at Tony as she spoke.

"Did he attack you?"

"No, sir."

"Then how the hell did you get him?"

"Tony and Loki took down one of his facilities and it just happened to be the right one."

There was silence on the line for a few moments, interrupted only by what sounded like Fury yelling orders at Maria. Finally, he said, "Stark, start explaining to me why you thought it was a good idea to attack one of doom's facilities with only another enemy of SHIELD as backup."

"Because I got a shiny new suit and wanted to test it out."

"And Loki? His reasoning?"

"I was bored. And I couldn't very well let him go off on his own and get himself blown up, now could I?" the god answered sarcastically, earning himself a pat on the shoulder and a glass of scotch from Tony.

Fury sighed heavily over the phone, saying, "Great, just what I needed, another smartass. As if Stark wasn't bad enough. The Luxor will be overhead at 800 to collect him for interrogation, try not to let him escape like the last one." With that the line went dead.

"Will I never live that down? It was one time," Loki joked, the casual words sounding ridiculous with his proper accent and just making it all the funnier.

"I'm still trying to live down the time I blew up my own house in a drunken stupor, Reindeer Games. No you won't." He got a judgmental look from the god, and added, "What? I thought I was dying. I'm not now. But SHIELD still thinks volatile and don't play well with others."

"What about that isn't true?" Clint asked.

Tony simply shrugged and flopped over on the couch, scooping a tablet off the coffee table and looking at the maps of the markings on his suit, the before overlaying the after so he could see what had changed.

True to what Loki had told him, the design had subtly grown and shifted, but none of it made any sense. Their meaning was a mystery he would unravel given more time for them to grow. The genius sighed and set the tablet down, glancing around the room at his team, his gaze eventually landing on Thor, who stood off to one side of the room with a guilty look on his face.

"What's wrong, Point Break? You look like you knocked over a lamp and are waiting for mom to notice and start yelling."

Thor looked slightly startled, his gaze whipping to meet the inventor's.

"I… I merely feel guilt for doubting my brother's abilities on the battlefield all these years. Surely, if only the pair of you could destroy an entire army of those robots then he has been sorely underestimated all these centuries."

Loki remained silent, refusing to meet Thor's eyes. The god of thunder noticed this, and began to cross the room towards him. "Brother, please. I do not desire to fight with you any longer. Can things not be as they were before? Before Jotunheim?"

The moment Thor mentioned the realm of the frost giants, Loki seized the arm Thor hand reaching out for him and tossed the other god across the room, the elder of the pair colliding with the wall as Loki fizzled out of the room.

"Is he still in the building?" Tony asked JARVIS, already back on his feet.

"He is on the roof, sir." The AI answered.

"I will go speak with him," Thor announced, slowly picking himself up from where he lay on the floor, leaning against the cracked wall.

"No, uncle. He clearly does not wish to speak with you." Hel said quickly, knowing her father far better than his adoptive brother despite their having been raised together.

"I'll go," Tony offered. Everyone – except Natasha – gave him a confused look, but he ignored them, just walking off to his room to grab a coat as it was the middle of winter and it had begun to snow while they were waiting for the quinjet to arrive.

Wordlessly, Hel laid a hand on his shoulder when he returned and teleported just him to the roof, keeping herself behind in the penthouse.

When the dark green swirled away from him and he could see his surroundings, he had to stifle a gasp.

Loki was sitting on one of the large air conditioning units, facing to the side so Tony could see his profile. He hadn't looked up when Tony arrived, and was staring down at his hand, which had turned a dark blue with darker blue markings much like the ones on Hel's left side flowing along his skin.

The snow had forced him into his Jotun form, the last thing in the world Loki wanted to see after Thor had reminded him of his true nature. As he stared down at his flesh, tears were falling slowly and silently from his bright red eyes.

"Leave me, Hel." He spoke finally. Somehow it surprised Tony that his voice remained the same. "I do not wish to be in anyone's presence right now."

"It's… not Hel." Tony said apprehensively. He knew from Thor that Loki was a frost giant, and he knew it was learning that fact that had finally driven him over the edge of madness. He didn't know how furious the trickster was going to be when he realized someone other than his daughter had seen him like this.

Loki leapt to his feet and whirled to face Tony, a savage snarl on his face. It taking everything the inventor had not to jump, knowing enough about Loki to know that fear was the absolute last thing to show him in this form.

"Hi." He started meekly, a halfhearted grin crossing his face before disappearing. "I uhh… I'm sorry. I didn't know that snow… I know you don't want people to—"

Loki cut him off, his voice a dangerous hiss, "Just say it, Stark. You're disgusted. Anyone would be. I'm a monster."

"No! Loki, you're not a monster," Tony tried to step closer, but Loki stepped backwards, keeping the space between them the same. "This is no worse than Bruce, Loki. Better even. When you're… like this, you're still _you. _Bruce takes the risk of accidentally killing everyone he cares about every time he hulks out. If he's not a monster, then neither are you."

"You're wrong, Stark. He was merely transformed into the Hulk by his own hubris, and most of the time he is separate from the beast. This _is _my true form. I am not a man that becomes a beast as Banner does. I am a beast that thinks itself a man."

"He's not separate from the Hulk. It's there, all the time. It talks to him in his head, trying to get him to let it out. But he fights it, and _that _is what makes him who he is. It's your actions that define you, not what you are."

Loki scoffed at this, and Tony realized his bad choice of words. "Actions? I tried to destroy an entire world, Stark. I tried to conquer yours. My actions are as monstrous as my blood."

"You did those things because you were in pain, Loki. Because the truth was revealed to you in such a painful way, and because the Chitauri _tortured _you into working with them. And look where you are, now. Tonight you fought at my side to bring down a villain who's caused far more damage than you ever did." As he spoke, he inched slowly closer, until now he was just a foot or so from Loki.

He reached up to touch his face slowly, Loki shouting, "Don't!" but he realized what Tony was doing too slow, his fingertips connecting with his skin. It was freezing cold, but didn't instantly give Tony frostbite as Loki had expected.

"Why not? I think it's actually kinda pretty," Tony said, misinterpreting why Loki had tried to prevent him from touching him.

"I thought… when we battled the frost giants, their touch gave Thor's friends frostbite. I thought it would do the same to you, but apparently… we… can control it. What do you mean, 'pretty'?"

"It reminds me of the suit you gave me," Tony replied absently tracing the lines on his cheek and neck as he had done to his suit hours before, like he was trying to memorize their every curve.

Apprehensively, Loki stared down at the smaller man's eyes, his own beginning to cloud again with built up tears. The look Stark was giving his hand as it ran along Loki's markings was tender and reverent, with the inventor's usual curiosity at being given a new puzzle to unravel.

It was enough to make the god finally break, choking out the shorter man's first name and crumpling against him, crying freely onto his shoulder. Tony was stunned, not expecting Loki to allow his godly pride to break so much.

At every point their bodies touched, Tony was freezing cold, even through the coat, but he wasn't about to complain and make Loki close himself off again. Instead, he reached up and wrapped his arms around the taller man's shoulders, feeling them shake. Tony was positive Loki had never, in all the centuries they had been alive, opened up to Thor like this, and that knowledge made his head spin. What did this mean for them? Loki had been acting like nothing had changed. He had even reverted to calling him 'Stark'. But now he didn't know what to think. And for once in his life, he didn't want to.

After a while, when Tony began to shiver, Loki pulled away and wiped his eyes, saying, "You must be freezing. I'm sorry…"

"It's ok, Loki. It's worth it if you feel better." He said between chattering teeth.

Loki nodded, leading Tony back to the stairwell. When they stepped inside, Loki changed back to his Aesir form and the warm air inside made Tony feel marginally better, but he was still shivering.

"I'm also the god of fire," Loki said before claiming Tony's lips, kissing him tenderly while green flames licked the inventor's body, spreading out from every point their bodies touched. It didn't hurt at all. The flames felt more like being submerged in warm water or wrapped in a heated blanket than being lit on fire.

Soon enough, Tony wasn't shivering anymore, and Loki broke the kiss. "Thanks." The inventor whispered.

"No. Thank you, Tony. For making me see the truth." Loki whispered back before leaning back down and capturing the inventor's lips again.

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**AN: **oooo, cutesy Loki! What do you think? Oh please do tell! I already have the next chapter started, but now this story is going to have to compete with work because *drum roll* I GOT A JOB! AT A MOVIE THEATRE! I'm tempted to ask off in advance for the midnight releases of all Marvel movies with set release dates. And the Hobbit. Replies:

**cara-tanka: **You always can't wait. ;P

**Trekkergurl: **I'm glad you did. And I know he is, poor thing. I'm so mean. It wasn't even on purpose, though. I wonder when he'll realize he is...

**sv4me: **I'm glad you liked it. It was actually my first written sex scene, so. XD And it means a lot to know that I write Loki well and that no one's OOC. I worry about that constantly. And that you think my Hel is as bad ass as I do. I was so happy that I got to let her use her powers a bit this chapter. I will definitely be checking ot your story as well!

**BrocadeGalaxy: **well aren't you a quiet one, then? It scared me as well, don't worry. I just got so much writer's block after the sex scene, which I'm glad to hear I did so well. Thank you so much for your compliments, they mean a lot. *hug*


	10. A Proposition

**AN: **Well that was much better time, eh? Chapter 10, guys! We're in the double digits! *happy dance* I'd like to thank you all for your outstanding support thus far, you're awesome readers. This chapter's gonna be some more emotional rollercoastering, and then some business. But mostly feels. I'm seriously getting more and more happy with these chapters as time goes on, guys. And that can only mean good things.

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Chapter 10: A Proposition

After a while, Stark reluctantly broke the kiss, regretting it all the more when a soft whimper escaped Loki's lips. Tony was enjoying this new side of Loki far more than he should be which was exactly why he was forcing himself to stop. He knew that no matter how much the god seemed to want and need him now, he was still just that: a god. A slightly crazy one, at that_. _

'_As if my own mind isn't at least partially a bag of cats as well.' _Tony told himself to shut up as usual, reminding himself that in the end, Loki would always regain his indomitable persona and no longer have any use for the mortal. He was always the pessimist, after all. _'I would kill to know what's going on in _his _bag of cats... I wonder if he's as conflicted as I am. No, stop it Tony. He's a crazy alien Norse god frost giant mage thingy bent on world domination, you're a genius billionaire playboy philanthropist with a super-suit and a cocksure attitude. It could never work out.' _

At this point, Tony honestly had no idea if his conscience was serious, or if it was being as much of a little shit as the god he was fretting over, but suddenly he became aware that Loki was pulling away. Shit, he must have missed something while he was having an argument with himself.

Before the moment was completely ruined, Tony tightened his grip on Loki's waist and said hurriedly, "No no, I'm sorry! Don't go away. I was… thinking."

Looking up to meet the trickster's gaze, the engineer was met with the most heartbreaking puppy-dog stare he had ever seen.

'_I am so fucked.' _Tony thought to himself as he let the god pull him back into his arms.

'_What has this Midgardian done to me?'_ Loki asked himself as he let the mortal hold him.

Suddenly, there was a slight crackle in the air and Loki head whipped up from where it rested in the crook of Tony's neck, anger flaring back up at the intrusion. Tony wrenched himself away, flying to the other end of the landing.

"Well well, what do we have here?" Hel laughed, having teleported up to check on them, her voice echoing even more than usual in the stairwell.

"Hel! Wha… What are you doing here?" Loki demanded, slightly flustered.

"I came up to make sure you weren't killing Stark for intruding. Don't worry, father. I'm not going to try and defend your honour or anything. Although you should be glad I'm not uncle Thor. I doubt he would be as… understanding."

"Why is it always the women that catch us?" Tony joked, trying to hide how uncomfortable he was to be caught by Loki's _daughter_.

"Ooh, so Natasha knows as well? How fun!" Hel grinned.

"Yes, and no one else. And I intend to keep it that way," Tony hissed. "There are… complications. Besides, I'm pretty sure Fury would personally shoot me in the head."

"Sir, Miss Potts has arrived downstairs. She seems angry with you. Again." JARVIS interrupted.

"Speaking of complications…" Tony sighed, glancing guiltily at Loki. The god was looking at him reproachfully, and when Tony open his mouth to speak he disappeared to the penthouse below.

Pepper jumped when he appeared, accidentally directly in front of her.

"Oh! H… Hello, Loki…" she stuttered.

He merely gave her a blank stare and turned on his heels, ignoring Thor's pleas to talk and slamming the door to the bedroom Tony had given him.

Back in the stairwell, Tony cursed and yelled, "I didn't even do anything! It's almost one in the morning! Why is Pepper mad at me at one in the morning?"

"Girlfriend, I'm guessing?" Hel asked, her voice making Tony jump. He'd almost forgotten she was there.

"Well… technically. Even before Loki was in the mix I barely ever saw her. I'm always busy in my lab or with Avengers stuff, and she's always running my company for me so I _can _be busy in my lab or with Avengers stuff. The only time I ever see her is when she's mad at me…"

"And you enjoy my father's company more?"

"Yes. No. I don't know, okay? Everything's been so crazy around here with Thanos, and Doom, and Loki, and you, and almost dying that I haven't had time to _think _about any of this! No one will let me think!" Tony shouted, voice echoing around the stairwell as he slammed his fists down on the metal railing.

"You're good for him. I had been wondering why he was acting so… peaceful. Now it's clear. Be warned, Stark: my father carries with him great pain. All his life he has been treated as a lesser being and it has left its mark. If you cause his pain to worsen, the eternity you spend in my realm will not be a pleasant one."

"What if I die in battle and go to Valhalla?"

"Steps can be taken."

Tony chuckled halfheartedly at how serious the woman was before saying, "I don't want to hurt either one of them, Hel. Pep's done so much for me over the years, and I really thought that she was going to be the one, but your dad…"

His voice trailed off, unsure of how to continue. However, JARVIS interrupted his thoughts. "Sir, Pepper is demanding your presence. Her exact words were, 'Tell that useless drunk to get up here this instant before I search the building for him.' I believe she thinks you're in your laboratory.

Tony swore again, in haling sharply and running a hand over his face. Wordlessly Hel placed a hand on his shoulder and teleported them both back down.

Pepper actually screamed a little bit this time when Tony appeared in front of her with a woman who appeared to be half corpse beside him.

"Pepper!" he exclaimed brightly, trying to act like his usual self. "You haven't met our new guest, have you? This is Hel. Loki's daughter, goddess of death, blah blah blah."

"Nice to meet you," she shot quickly at the goddess before rounding on Tony, "Have you been ignoring me? Were you dead again? Because those are the only reasons I can think of for you to be ignoring my calls."

"I've been ignoring your calls? JARVIS, have I been ignoring her calls?"

"You told me to automatically mute all incoming calls from Miss Potts two weeks ago, sir. I believe you were intoxicated at the time."

"You told him to do _what_?" Pepper screeched, outraged. "Tony, I've been trying to get ahold of you for days! There are mountains of forms I need you to sign, there was a gala _tonight _that I needed you to attend, there's an extremely important meeting later this week… are you even listening to me?"

Tony had wandered over to his bar, desperately needing a drink if he was going to deal with Pepper's yelling. The rest of the team, including Hel, was looking on in stunned silence, too scared to move less the angry woman's fury be turned on them.

"Yea yea Pep, I'm listening. Forms, galas, meetings, I got it. Drink?"

"No, Tony I don't want a drink, I want you to _listen. _Maybe come down from your tower every once in a while? You've got yourself locked up in here like Rapunzel!"

"My hair's not that long. Tasha just had to cut it a couple weeks ago after Loki lit it on fire."

Pepper was silent for a moment before continuing her tirade, maybe even angrier than before. "He goes around lighting you _on fire _and you still let him stay here?"

Tony could have sworn he heard Tasha and Hel giggle. _Giggle. _The goddess of death and a master assassin were laughing at his expense. "To be fair, I did try to make him wear a stupid T-shirt."

Pepper growled, saying, "Tony I don't have time for this. This one in the morning and I'm here _begging _you to work with me because it's the first chance I've had to come up here with how busy I've been running _your _company. Now we can either talk about business, or you can tell me why you haven't bothered to take me out in two months."

Tony's eyes suddenly flared open, and he wished that he was way, _way _drunker than he was. "Has it been that long?" he croaked.

"Yes." Pepper said, glaring at him.

"Well, you know, I've been really busy with saving the world and all…"

"Is there another woman?" she snapped suddenly. Tony froze, eyes flying to where Natasha stood, praying she would gut him later for lying to Pepper. _'It's only a half lie,'_ he told himself as his mouth formed the word no. _'She asked if there was another _woman_._'

Unfortunately, Pepper caught the lie in his voice and followed his glace towards Natasha, face twisting in agony. "Her? You're cheating on me with Natal—Natasha? Really Tony?!"

"No! Pepper, that's ridiculous!" Tony rushed, trying desperately to diffuse her.

"Miss Potts, I would _never._ Ever." Natasha said, trying to help as Barton was now glaring at her as well.

"Really, Tasha? Never ever? Ouch."

"Not helping, Tony!" the assassin yelled at him.

"That's it, Tony. I can't take this anymore. I don't care if you've been cheating on me or not, I'm done with you. I just can't take it. I'll stay on as your secretary because this company would crash and burn without me, but we're through," she shouted, on the verge of tears as she stormed away towards the elevator. Before she stepped inside, she shot over her shoulder, "I'll be back in Tuesday to go over paperwork with you. That's in two days if you've lost track." Then the metal doors slid shut after her.

Immediately after Pepper left Clint stormed off as well, Natasha on his heels. They both glared at Stark as they passed.

Thor tried to comfort Tony, but the genius shrugged off the Asgardian's arm, making a beeline for his bar. Without a word he removed two unopened bottles of scotch and disappeared into his room, slamming the door behind him. A few moments later, Metallica was leaking out through his not-quite-soundproof-enough walls.

Thor, Steve, and Bruce just stood there, exchanging confused looks.

"Clint, wait!" Natasha shouted after the archer as he stormed away to the roof Tony and Loki had just vacated. "Clint, nothing is going on between me and Tony, I swear! Please come back!"

"Then why did he look at you all nervous like that?" he shouted, finally stopping and whirling to face her.

"Because I know something he doesn't want the rest of the team, or Pepper, to know," she told him in her usual deadpan way.

"What does that mean, Tasha?" Clint sighed. He was beginning to calm down from his initial rage at the suggestion that there might be something between her and the engineer, unwilling to lose her after he'd finally gotten her.

"I don't think he'd be comfortable with me telling anyone…"

"Tasha," he said, warning in his voice. "I know you're a spy and all, but there can't be any secrets between us anymore. I don't care about Tony's feelings, hell I don't even care about our jobs. I only care about you. I always have."

At Clint's words, Natasha's cold demeanor cracked and she grinned like an idiot at the archer. _Her _archer. "Fine, Clint. Tony is… I caught him, that's why he looked at me. I caught him making out with… Loki."

Clint's eyes widened, anger flickering over his face momentarily. "Loki? Seriously? I didn't even know he was gay, let alone for that… that monster. Are you sure this is his own choice, Tasha? What if Loki's controlling him?"

"I doubt it. You've seen his eyes. Besides, I doubt Loki would have risked his life to heal him if he was just under his control."

"This has been going on for that long? Should we tell the others?"

"No, Clint! That is exactly why I didn't want you to know! I doubt Steve or Furywould be as understanding. They'd be worried about _us _being compromised if they found out, let alone Tony and Loki. And I definitely don't want to be around when _Thor _finds out."

At mention of the trickster's older brother, Clint grimaced, finally conceding to Natasha. "Fine. But can I at least talk to Tony about it? I still don't trust the bastard after what he did to me…_"_

"I don't either, but you have to admit he hasn't done anything suspicious. Maybe he really is more concerned with getting the Chitauri off him than he is with causing havoc."

"Or with getting Tony _on _him." Clint laughed. Natasha glared at him, but couldn't help chuckle at him joke, no matter how immature. "Okay… thanks for telling me the truth Tasha. I'm sorry I thought… I'm sorry."

Natasha just gave him a halfhearted smile and a reassuring grip on the shoulder and walked off to find Hel. She had noticed the goddess react similarly to her during Pepper's screaming match with Tony, and she had to find out how much she knew. Once a spy, always a spy.

The next morning, Fury arrived to retrieve Victor Von Doom. As the two that did the most to finally capture him, Fury made Tony and Loki ride with him in the quinjet up to the Luxor. It was a very quiet trip.

The two held Doom securely between them as Fury led them through the redesigned helicarrier. The cyclops didn't like trusting someone he still considered an enemy escorting another enemy, but he recognized that even Steve would have had trouble escaping from the god's grip. They rounded a corner and came to a cell not unlike the one they had thrown Loki in three years ago, and the trickster couldn't help but laugh at the irony of the situation.

Fury glared at him as the palm scanner analyzed his prints, the large door sliding open. When doom was safely on the other side, he turned and faced the trio, trying to assume an intimidating pose just as Loki had.

"How's it feel to be on the other side of the glass?" Fury addressed the god. When he just looked at the director with an unreadable expression, he continued. "I had my doubts about your intentions, and while I still may not trust you completely, it's not as if I trust Tony completely either. This is a big step on the road to redemption, and I'm glad to have you on our side. Let's just hope you do as good a job on the Chitauri."

"Despite appearances, Director Fury, I am still on my own side as I have always been. It just so happens that my interests now align with yours rather than the Chitauri's."

At Loki's smug words, Tony snorted a brief laugh, followed by a groan as he rubbed his head. The genius was intensely hung over after spending most of the night drinking on his own while listening to his music at a volume that JARVIS kept telling him he would regret in the morning. If only he had listened. Tony knew Loki was mad at him, and for once he knew exactly why, but his head was pounding so hard he could barely speak, let alone form a cohesive argument as to why Loki shouldn't just kill him.

Fury just rolled his eyes and led them off to the debriefing room like the one where three years previously Bruce had called Loki a bag of cats, grumbling something incoherent under his breath about how another Stark was the last thing he needed.

When they got to the debriefing room, Tony collapsed heavily into one of the chairs and put his head down on the table, Loki gracefully folding himself into another one a few places down. Fury dropped three files on the table, one grey and two blood red, before rolling a bottle of Advil across the table at Stark and sitting down.

Tony gratefully uncapped it and took two dry, then after a moment's though took two more and turned his glazed eyes towards Fury. Loki was busy staring at his own file with a slightly annoyed look on his face. His was one of the red ones, the other being Doom's.

"We haven't bothered to change yours yet," Fury grumbled to the god before shoving his and Tony's files to the side and opening Victor's. After glancing over it for a moment, he let it fall shut again and said, "So let me get this straight. You two, on a whim, decided to bust one of Doom's most heavily fortified facilities without any backup, and it just happened to be the one he was hiding out in?"

"Well it sounds like you already know what happened, anyway. Guess we don't need to be here. Come on, Reindeer Games," Tony said, standing to leave.

"Sit down, Stark. I'm nowhere near done with you yet," Fury barked. "What the hell were you thinking? Going in there backed only by someone who could just as easily turn around and be working _with _Doom as he could work with you."

Loki snarled at Fury, hackles rising at the suggestion that he would betray Stark despite his current anger with the engineer. He was about to launch into a tirade, but Tony interrupted him.

"I was just trying out my new suit."

"New suit? Stark, you were told to keep us up to date on all new models of the Ironman weapon."

"Not a weapon, and not a new model. It's just a mark VIII."

"Then what's so new about it?"

"I gave Stark a large quantity of a nearly indestructible metal from one of the nine realms to make his suits out of in the hopes that he would stop getting himself half-killed." Loki interrupted, not willing to put up with Tony's banter as much as it normally amused him.

"And you just put it into a suit without testing to make sure it was safe?" Fury growled at the inventor.

"I ran a couple tests. Enough to know I wouldn't blow up or fall out of the sky."

"I'm gonna need to get a sample of this metal, Stark."

"No can do, Fury. I don't work for you, remember?"

"SHIELD has the ability seize any materials it deems potentially harmful, Stark. You know that."

"And I have the right to retract all Stark Industries support of your little organization. Now where would you be without your precious floating sky palace?" Tony threatened, indicating the helicarrier around them. Fury forgot all too easily that it had been Tony that designed the things.

The director stared him down for almost half a minute before begrudgingly saying they could go back up to the flight deck and a quinjet would take them back to Stark Tower.

"No need," Loki hissed smugly, placing a hand on Tony's shoulder and teleporting them both back down.

When they landed, Tony turned to the god, saying, "Thanks, buddy. I don't think I could have taken another jet ride with this hangover."

Loki just ignored him, shifting into his battle armour. "Silence. I have matters to attend, unless you want the Chitauri to take your planet this time." With that he disappeared, leaving Tony blinking at the empty air that hummed with magic, the only reminder that seconds before it had been occupied by the god of mischief.

The next breath Loki took was acidic with heat and sulfur, making the god gag. He was standing in a massive stone chamber, miles beneath the surface of the Earth where the heat of the planet's core seeped into the air. Though that was not the sole reason for the heat.

The air filled with a deep laughter, causing the stone around him to shudder. "You've come a long way to die, little prince."

"Not the first time I've heard those words," Loki said, turning to face the speaker. Before him stood a massive red figure, with long horns that curved outwards rather than forwards like those of Loki's helm. His laughing face was rimmed with a mane of fire, and his long tail lashed against the rocks. It would have been an intimidating sight had it not been for the massive chains that shackled the fire giant to the stone floor. "And likely not the last."

"What do you wish of me, son of Odin?"

Loki laughed at this, glad to hear of Surtur's ignorance of his true nature. It would make his plan all the easier. "I have a proposition."

"I'm listening."

"I grant you your freedom and all the souls of Midgard, and all you must do is destroy three puny Chitauri ships and the army that accompanies them. They would destroy this realm and you with it regardless, the gain is purely yours."

"And what do you serve to gain, prince?"

"The Chitauri would have my head. I am to keep it."

Surtur laughed again, small stones falling to the cavern floor with the vibrations, "I accept."

* * *

**AN: **What do you think? Who is our little liar playing like a fiddle? Tony and the Avengers, or Surtur? Tell me your thoughts, reviews make me happy! Aaaaand now it's reply time!

**cara-tanaka: **Well that's just borderline passive aggressive XD

**kitkatthevampirelover92: **I'm glad you liked it. Loki's emotions are actually quite easy for me to write because (unfortunately) I can relate to him and Tony quite easily.

**Trekkergurl: **I love them too. Like I said in the author's note, I just keep getting happier and happier with my characterization of them.

**sv4me: **I love your reviews so much, they're always so long and sweet. I hope that *points up* answers some of your questions, as all the rest are spoilers, darling. ;P I'm glad you love my Loki, I just can't not write him as a broken little thing who deep down just needs someone to care.

**neko: **I'm glad you thought so, I really enjoyed writing that scene. I don't like making those two do cute things too often because for their characters it's just not believable, but given the chance I'll pounce. And _you _are beyond awesome for being so nice.


	11. Fraternizing With the Enemy

**AN: **I have no excuse. I'm the slowest, laziest person on the planet. Just take the chapter and don't kill me!

* * *

Ch. 11: Fraternizing With the Enemy

Tony was down in his lab, as he had been for the past several hours. Classic heavy metal was roaring from the speakers, its volume made even louder by the cold concrete of the room's walls and all the metal machinery. Normally when he was this angry he would just drink and take a part one of his cars, but Loki had destroyed all of those during his little tantrum two weeks back. Now the only thing to disassemble and tune up was his robots, which had thankfully survived the god's wrath. He probably would have never forgiven him if he'd broken Dummie and U.

'_Has it really only been a couple weeks since the god had arrived at the Tower? It feels like so much longer… Why did I let this get so out of hand? How did we get from throwing each other out windows to having sex? Fucking amazing sex…' _Tony shivered when a wave of heat ran through his body straight to his abdomen in response to his thoughts. He rubbed a hand across his face and through his wild hair, still too short from when Loki had burned it when he first arrived, trying to clear his head. When that didn't work he roared in frustration and flung the wrench he was holding across the room. It collided with the far wall and skittered across the floor, stopping next to what was left of the pile of Uru bars.

Dummie chirped worriedly as he stormed across the room, bringing his bottle of scotch with him. Tony ignored his oldest creation, drawing heavily from the bottle. He found himself standing in front of the Uru, scolding at the alien metal. He sighed and flopped himself onto it, reclining on the mound.

'_Right where my Mustang used to be.' _He picked up one of the ornate bars and chucked it across the room and it struck the wall next to the elevator just as it doors slid open, revealing Natasha and Hel. He noticed them right when he was about to let another one fly, but stopped himself in time to avoid potentially striking one of them in the head with a metal ingot.

"Throwing things now, Stark? You're just as bad as Loki." Natasha shouted over the music, unimpressed as ever with his antics.

"What are you two doing down here?" he asked after muting the music.

"JARVIS told us you were acting a bit… irrationally. We managed to keep Bruce and Steve from being the ones to come check on you."

"I don't need to be checked on," he grumbled petulantly, but at a look from the assassin – that the goddess mirrored so perfectly it was kind of scary – and sighed and said, "Ok, fine, what do you want?"

Natasha rolled her eyes, sighing in mock disgust at the genius. She walked the short distance to the pile of uru Tony was still reclined on top of and perched next to him, casually grabbing his bottle and setting it on the floor next to her, out of his reach. Hel followed her almost reluctantly, choosing to stand a few paces away rather than sit.

"Why'd you lie to Pepper?"

"Damn, skip the pleasantries why don't you," Tony grumbled, automatically defaulting to being a smartass as he always did in uncomfortable situations.

"Come on, Stark, this is important. Whether you like it or not you've been compromised, and judging by hoe you barely tried to calm her down back there, pretty badly. I need to know how bad."

"Why, so you can run and tell Fury that I'm fraternizing with the enemy? Maybe I should tell your pirate buddy about you and Legolas while we're at it."

"That's not why—" Natasha began, but Tony cut her off, his racing mind was racing and his tongue acting of its own free will from the alcohol.

"Besides, I thought he was off the hook after he saved my life, offered to help save the world, and helped us capture Victor Von Doom. I guess SHIELD's holding its ex-enemies to a higher standard than they used to. You're lucky you made it in before they upped the ante or you'd probably be just a skull with one of Barton's arrows sticking out of its eye socket by now."

"Anthony!" Hel barked, her voice echoing even more than usual against the lab's walls and managing to shut him up before he drove the knife deeper. "We are not here because of this… SHIELD. We are here because we are your _friends _and we are _worried _about you."

Tony glanced towards Natasha out of the corner of his eye, and he could tell he'd hurt her. Most people wouldn't have been able to detect a change in her steely exterior, but they were team-mates. The only one who knew her better – by a vast margin – was Clint. _'Damn it, Tony. Why can't you ever just shut your fucking mouth?' _

"Why would you be worried about me? I'm fine."

"I don't know if you noticed, Tony, but you just got broken up with and then proceeded to hide in your lab for eleven hours straight and none of us have seen Loki since he stormed into his room."

'_I've been down here that long?' _"He… Loki said he had stuff to take care of. With the plan. I'm sure he'll be back soon."

"Are you sure about that?"

"What? You think he was lying?"

"He is the—"

"Tasha, if you say 'god of lies,' I'm putting the suit on."

Natasha sighed again, wishing there was a way to make dealing with the genius less difficult. "He did seem pretty pissed off when Pepper was here."

"Yea? It's Loki. I think his entire existence is varying levels of pissed off."

"Stark, stop avoiding the point. We think he was… jealous."

"Jealous? Seriously? Big, bad, world dominating god of mischief, jealous of a secretary?"

"Thought he may not seem so, my father has always been extremely sensitive and easily angered, even before he learned of his true heritage. That's part of how all this madness began. I don't know how you've managed it, but he trusts you. I would even venture as far as to say that he… cares. I know what you saw last night. While I am comfortable with my true form, he is far from it. Had it been anyone else who had seen him, he would have killed them without a thought. Instead, he opened up to you, only to be reminded that your heart belongs to someone else."

Tony just sat there staring blankly ahead of him as the goddess's words swam in his mind. What she said made so much sense, but could it actually be true?

"I don't want to have this conversation now, ok? I don't want to have it _ever. _We're two grown-ass adults and an immortal god-thing talking about another immortal god-thing like we're a bunch of teenage girls."

"I'm just trying to make you understand, Tony! God damnit, why is this so hard for you to understand? A fucking _unstable god _with a history of trying to destroy planets when he's pissed at people he cares about is in love with you and you're acting like it's not a problem! We have to make sure he stays on our side."

Tony paled at Natasha's words, glancing nervously at Hel, who was just staring at him with a similar expression to the one he was so used to seeing plastered across Natasha's face during an interrogation.

"He's not… we're not… How could Loki be in love with me?"

"You know what? I give up! Hel, you handle this. Maybe you can scare him into submission. I'm gonna go make sure Steve and his thunder-buddy don't decide to come down here anyway. Make sure he stops acting like a little girl."

Natasha stormed off towards the stairs, too impatient for the elevator, with his bottle of scotch in hand.

"She's right you know," Hel said, staring down at Tony.

"What? Don't tell me you're worried about your daddy swapping sides too."

"No, he would never have involved me in this if it were another of his schemes. He's always been too worried for my safety for that."

"Your safety? You reduced a Doombot to a pile of dust in seconds. I don't think there's much to worry about."

"What as Asgardian is said to be the god of is chosen based on their personality. Why my father is mischief and lies is obvious, but Midgardians always forget he is also fire, despite being a Jotun. Do you know why that is?"

"No. Why are you telling me this now?"

"Because fire is wild. It's raw and untamed and vicious, and yet so easily manipulated. The slightest breeze can make it flicker and dance. If looked after properly, it's steady and warm, but if given too much fuel, it turns into a raging inferno, scorching everything in its path. That is Loki. When he's happy, he only wishes to extend that happiness to those around him, but he is quick to anger, and his anger is extremely destructive. His weakness is his emotions."

"I don't get it."

Hel laughed at this, the sound haunting as ever. "You will, soon enough. From what I've heard, you're fire, too."

Before Tony could ask her what she meant, a crackle of emerald green appeared near Tony's desk, effectively stopping their conversation.

"Why do I feel as if you were talking about me?"

"Come on Reindeer Games, who says I can't have a friendly chat with the goddess of death on top a giant pile of alien metal?" Tony asked, tapping him on the arm as he passed by on the way to his emergency stash of alcohol. Couldn't let Natasha win, now could he?

"You already reek of that vile stuff, do you really need more?"

"Yea? And you reek of sulfur. Besides, last time I checked you like it too," Tony said with a wink, unable to resist the suggestive joke, even though now was apparently not the time.

Hel interrupted their staring contest after a moment, saying, "Father, where were you? I was beginning to worry that he had somehow managed to attack you?"

"I'll just be over here, if anyone cares to explain what's going on," Tony said before uncorking the bottle and taking a gulp. It wasn't as nice as the stuff he'd brought down from upstairs, but it'd do.

"Surtur has no hope of gaining freedom without my assistance. Besides, I still have this." With that, Loki spun his hands around each other in the air, causing a blue handled box to materialize in front of him. He set it down on one of Tony's work benches hurriedly, but he hands had already turned Jotun blue up to the wrists. Instinctually, he began to hide them behind his back, but then seemed to realize that the only two people in the room had already seen it.

"What's that?" Tony asked, crossing the room to investigate the Casket, scientific curiosity winning out against caution as usual. He chose not to think about the fact that Loki took a good two steps back from the table to avoid allowing Tony to brush against him.

"Don't touch it, Stark. I might not give you frost bite, but that certainly will."

'_Damn it, it's back to Stark again. Does that really bother me?' _Deciding not to heed Loki's warning, Tony poked the Casket experimentally with a single finger, hissing with pain when he jumped back.

"What did I just say?" Loki growled, snatching the injured hand out of the air with just _slightly _too much force. The tip was already beginning to turn black, and was bleach white further down. Green flame danced along the digit, and this was the first time they actually felt hot as feeling returned to it. After his earlier conversation with Hel, he now understood why Loki's magic looked like fire.

The magic stopped flickering over Tony's hand, but neither man made a move to let go of the other. Eventually, after remembering that Loki's daughter was still there, they both stepped away nervously, Stark directing his attention to Hel.

"So how is this thing supposed to let you guys control Surtr?"

"It's a Jotun artifact called the Casket of Ancient Winters. My grandfather took it after the war..." the goddess trailed off in her explanation, white eyes moving tentatively over to her father.

Loki snarled when he noticed her hesitance. "You don't have to be so tactful, daughter. Merely reminding me of the day Odin stole me from Laufey is not going to send me off on another maddened campaign for world domination." He then turned his gaze back to Tony, explaining, "The Casket harness the raw power of frost, nothing more. Fire giants are particularly susceptible to is powers, so much so that it can be used to bend their wills."

"So it's like Odysseus and his bag of winds?"

"I suppose, if you really must compare it to something."

"Sounds like a crazy plan with only half a chance of working. I like it."

"Wow, Thor wasn't kidding. You really are just as crazy as my father," Hel laughed. Both men turned and looked at her with mirrored expressions of annoyance, simply causing her to laugh harder. "Alright, alright, fine. Thor said he was going to take me on a tour of the city tonight, so I must be off. Do try not to kill each other while I'm gone." With that she disappeared in a puff of dark green magic, leaving the genius and the trickster alone.

"Two Asgardians loose on New York City. If that doesn't sound like a disaster waiting to happen, I don't know what does."

"Me loose on New York City?"

"Touché."

The two drifted into silence for several long moments, Loki leaning against the work table holding the Casket – the metal table beginning to be covered in hoarfrost – with his hair masking his face, listening to the silence interrupted by the hum of Stark's machines and the genius absently pushing things around on his desk.

Finally, the tension in the room became too great, and Loki broke the silence.

"Stark, I—"

"Don't Reindeer Games. Just… don't. I know."

"How could you possibly know what I was about to say?" Loki snapped, a hint of annoyance entering his voice.

Tony's face twisted into an unreadable expression somewhere between pain and resignation, but he stepped closer to the god anyway. "Because I know."

"That is not a reason, Stark…" Loki growled, his voice trailing off as the shorter man approached. He visibly shook his thoughts back into place, saying, "Why were you down here alone with my daughter?"

"Not the same reason why I usually down here alone with you, if that's what you're getting at. We were… talking. About magic." _'Only a half lie,' _Tony told himself as the god's green eyes flickered back and forth over his face.

"And by magic I assume you mean me."

"Yea, ok, fine. Remind me never to try and trick the god of lies."

"I doubt you'd heed the warning." Loki sighed.

"What, me? Not listen to someone? No…"

"It would indeed be a warm day in Jotunheim."

They both broke into laughter for a moment, Stark secretly impressed that Loki had a firm enough grasp on Midgardian idioms after just a few months here to twist such a common saying into something more fitting to himself.

"Fine, Stark. Have it your way." Loki finally sighed.

"Great! Now lets get plastered!"

"I thought Miss Romanov took your alcohol?"

"How…? You weren't even her when… whatever." Stark grumbled before making his way over to the other side of the lab and opening up a panel on the wall. "I'm always prepared, Reindeer Games."

The genius winked at Loki and raised the bottle to his lips, but Loki blinked over and snatched it away. Ignoring Tony's protests, Loki drank deeply before running his delicate tongue along his lips with a haughty grin.

"I can tell you've already been drinking, Stark. You _do _want me to be able to catch up, right?" Loki teased.

The scientist merely glared up at him before grinning dangerously. In a flash Tony's rough hands were on either side of the god's slender face, pulling it down to plant a sloppy kiss on Loki's lips. Before Loki could get his bearings and return the kiss, Tony pulled away and brought his lips to the god's ear. "Call me Tony, damnit," he growled before nipping it playfully.

"Maybe this was all party of my plan?"

"How could you have possibly set this up?"

Loki merely shrugged languidly, laughing when Stark tried to pry his bottle back from the Asgardian's powerful grip. Finally he gave up, choosing a less direct means of reacquiring his bottle.

Silently, he slid his hand down Loki's hand and arm away from the scotch to rest on his slender torso, wrapping his arm around his waist to pull the taller man closer. Loki allowed him to. He was tired from expending so much magic on teleportation and intimidating Surtr that day, he was content to let the mortal lead.

Tony pulled him down into another kiss, this one more tender than the last, and Loki slowly wrapped his arms around the genius. The kiss grew more heated, and Loki began to shift how Tony was stretched up against him. That's when the shorter man made his move.

With far more speed and agility than Loki would ever have thought Tony capable of, especially without the suit, he spun out of the Asgardians arms and snatched the bottle of scotch on his way. Loki was still blinking at him in confusion with his tongue still sticking out slightly from when it had been curved around Tony's own moments before, while Tony was leading against one of his work tables.

"Check," the genius said with a cocky grin before pulling deeply from the bottle.

Despite is weariness, Loki's face lit up with a somewhat terrifying grin and launched himself at Tony, who tried his best to escape. However, there was no way in hell he was outrunning a god, and before they had done half a lap around the lab Loki had him.

"And just where do you think you're doing? Loki breathed into his ear. "I'm not nearly done with you yet."

Loki roughly shoved him against the nearest wall and began hungrily kissing his way down Tony's tony, neck, and collar bone, leaving the genius to wonder what he could have done to be so lucky.

* * *

**AN: **so yea... I got the worst writers block ever, beign why this took so long, and it probably sucks. But I have a plan now! so... Reviews?


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